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G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS,  NEW  YORK. 


THE   SCIENCE  OF 

L- 

^ESTHETICS 


THE  NATURE,  KINDS,  LAWS,  AND  USES 


BEAUTY 


BY 

HENRY   N.   BAY 
AUTHOR  OF  LOGIC,  ART  OK  DISCOURSE,  ENGLISH  LITERATURK,  ETC. 


THIRD    EDITION 


NEW  YORK   &  LONDON 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

Cbt  fituchtrboclur  ^rtsa 
1888 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1872,  by 

CHARLES  C.  CHATFIELD  &  Co., 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


Press  of 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SoN' 

New  York 


P  REPACK. 


However  abstract  and  speculative  the  present 
treatise  may  appear  to  any,  the  preparation  of  it 
was  in  fact  prompted  and  carried  on  to  a  great  ex- 
tent in  the  closest  practical  connection  with  the 
study  and  teaching  of  rhetoric.  This  art  simply 
proposes  as  its  aim  to  teach  the  construction  of 
Discourse ;  to  train  to  the  expression  of  thought  in 
language, — to  the  embodiment  of  idea  in  suitable 
form  of  articulate  sound.  There  were  obviously 
three  different  things  to  be  regarded  in  this  work, — 
the  thought  to  be  expressed,  the  word-form  in  which 
it  was  to  be  embodied,  and  the  act  itself  of  embody- 
ing the  thought  in  the  word.  Most  abundant  and 
most  unhappy  experience  had  shown  how  futile  the 
attempt  to  acquire  the  power  to  speak  or  to  write 
well  by  the  mere  study  of  the  rules  of  grammar  or 
of  rhetorical  style.  However  necessary  to  the 
highest  skill  in  speaking  and  writing  the  knowledge 
of  those  principles  may  be,  the  demonstration  has 
been  most  complete  that  the  exclusive  or  prepon- 
derating study  of  them  can  never  bring  skill  in 
discourse.  Nor  on  the  other  hand  was  the  art  of 
discourse  to  be  acquired  by  mere  study  of  thought 
—of  its  nature,  its  laws,  its  legitimate  forms.  Logic 
is  as  really  necessary  to  the  writer  or  speaker  as 

(Hi) 


iV  PREFACE. 

grammar  and  the  laws  of  style.  But  more  than 
these,  above  either  or  both  of  them,  it  was  found 
necessary  to  know  how  to  put  logical  thought  into 
grammatical  word-form.  Here  indeed  lies  the  great 
art  of  the  writer  and  speaker ;  here  his  peculiar 
characteristic  power  and  skill.  To  the  study  of  this 
element  accordingly  the  mind  of  the  pupil  was  to 
be  predominantly  turned ;  and  logic  and  grammar 
while  they  were  to  be  thoroughly  mastered,  were  yet 
to  be  held  subordinate  to  it.  What  this  is — to  put 
thought  fitly  into  words — to  embody  idea  in  perfect 
form  which  is  but  perfect  beauty ;  the  nature,  the 
laws,  the  forms  of  this  perfect  beauty,  accordingly 
demanded  his  earnest  study.  To  guide  and  help  this 
study — the  philosophy  of  form — unhappily,  however, 
our  literature  affords  to  him  nothing  of  much  prac- 
tical value,  and  even  where  the  subject  was  treated  at 
all,  in  our  literature  or  in  that  of  continental  Europe, 
the  treatment  was  from  a  point  of  view  too  remote 
and  too  speculative  to  be  turned  to  account.  Ques- 
tions were  ever  arising  in  determining  the  processes 
in  the  art  of  constructing  discourse  which  could  find 
no  satisfactory  solution  in  these  metaphysical  or 
critical  discussions.  For  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century  thus  the  studies  and  instructions  in  rhetoric 
and  the  composition  of  discourse  continued  to  put 
upon  explorations  into  this  field  of  form — of  beauty. 
It  became  apparent,  moreover,  that  other  arts 
were  groping  and  stumbling  in  the  same  way  as 
that  of  discourse.  Every  where  was  discovered  the 
silly  and  ever  futile  attempt  to  arrive,  by  a  blind 
leap  and  jump  in  the  dark,  at  a  perfect  form  of  art 


— at  a  beautiful  landscape,  a  fine  poem,  an  excellent 
painting  or  statue,  a  sweet  melody  or  harmony — at 
a  perfect  form  of  beauty,  with  no  intelligence  of 
what  a  perfect  form  is,  what  form  is,  and  how  it  is 
to  be  created.  Indeed  the  grand  defect  and  bane 
of  modern  art  in  all  departments  is  its  utter  igno- 
rance of  what  art  proposes  to  do.  Mr.  Fergusson, 
in  his  History  of  Architecture,  remarks  that  while 
in  every  nation  the  art  was  successful,  wherever 
practiced  up  to  the  sixteenth  century,  since  then 
"not  one  building  has  been  produced  that  is 
admitted  to  be  entirely  satisfactory  or  which  perma- 
nently retains  a  hold  on  general  admiration."  The 
reason  is  that  ancient  architecture  built  suitably  to 
the  purposes  of  the  building ; — or  as  we  may  ex- 
press it,  grasping  first  the  idea  of  the  building,  it 
then  with  the  best  material  at  hand  proceeded 
intelligently  to  embody  the  idea  in  it ;  modern 
architecture,  knowing  vastly  more  of  materials  and 
of  architectural  details  and  having  more  con- 
structive skill,  has  overlooked  the  vital  element 
of  old  art — the  actual  incorporation  of  the  idea 
into  the  material  at  its  control.  It  has  leaped 
blindly  in  hope  to  realize  a  perfect  form,  forgetting 
that  no  perfect  form  can  be  reached  but  in  the 
rational  way  of  expressing  some  idea  in  its  appro- 
priate matter,  and  that  this  expressing,  this  em-', 
bodying,  is  the  governing  element  in  all  art- pro- 
cedure and  can  never  be  realized  but  intelligently 
and  aimingly,  that  is  rationally,  and  in  accordance 
with  the  laws  of  the  rational  .nature. 

The  fruit   of  this   long  labor,    occasioned  and 


VI  PREFACE. 

directed  as  stated  in  these  rhetorical  studies,  ap- 
pears in  this  volume.  The  special  preparation  of 
this  treatise  on  the  general  subject  of  beauty  as 
perfect  form,  has  been  prompted  by  the  observation 
that  English  literature  is  marvelously  poor  in 
aesthetic  treatises,  while  a  very  general  and  earnest 
demand  exists  for  suitable  text  books  in  this  depart- 
ment of  study.  The  importance  of  the  study  in- 
deed can  hardly  be  overrated,  whether  regarded  in 
its  relations  to  the  culture  of  art  generally  and  the 
right  interpretation  and  enjoyment  of  art-creations 
of  whatever  kind,  or  to  the  mere  personal  ends  of 
personal  culture,  since  most  vitally  connected  with 
all  intellectual  and  moral  culture  is  the  familiar 
knowledge  of  the  nature  of  the  beautiful  as  related 
to  the  true  and  the  good. 

Especial  care  has  been  taken  to  observe  the 
strictest  method  in  the  whole  development  of  the 
study,  and  to  ground  the  teachings  on  the  firmest 
foundations  of  philosophical  truth  and  to  exhibit 
each  part  of  the  system  in  its  exact  relations  to  the 
whole  and  to  every  other  part.  When  it  is  used 
as  a  class  book  for  instruction,  the  judicious  teacher 
will  accordingly  be  careful  to  omit,  at  least  in  the 
first  studies,  such  portions  as  are  too  abstract  or 
foreign  to  the  customary  range  of  thought  in  the 
pupil.  The  plan  of  the  work,  so  far  as  respects  the 
mingling  of  philosophical  explanations  and  argu- 
mentations with  the  statements  of  the  principles, 
to  which  summary  statements  a  mere  rudimental 
text-book  should  perhaps  be  confined,  was  imposed 
as  a  necessity  in  the  circumstances  of  the  case, 


PREFACE.  VH 

which  required  that  sufficient  support  in  reason  and 
fact  should  be  furnished  for  the  teachings  so  far  as 
novel  in  form  or  substance. 

The  following  works  have  with  others  been  more 
or  less  consulted  in  the  preparation  of  this  volume  : 

Characteristics  of  Men,  Manners,  Opinions,  Times.  In  three  vol- 
umes. By  the  Right  Honorable  Anthony,  Earl  of  Shaftesbury.  The 
third  edition.  1723. 

An  Inquiry  into  the  Original  of  our  Ideas  of  Beauty  and  Virtue. 
The  third  edition.  By  Francis  Hutcheson.  1729. 

Elements  of  Moral  Science.     By  James  Beattie,  LL.D.     1790. 

Elements  of  Criticism.  By  Henry  Home,  Lord  Kames.  Am. 
edition.  1838. 

A  Philosophical  Inquiry  into  the  Origin  if  our  Ideas  of  the  Subiimi 
and  Beautiful :  with  an  introductory  discourse  concerning  Taste. 
By  the  Right  Hon.  Edward  Burke.  Am.  ed.  1834. 

Essays  on  the  Nature  and  Principles  of  Taste.  By  the  Rev.  Arch- 
ibald Alison,  LL.B.,  F.R.S.  Dublin,  1790. 

An  Analytical  Inquiry  into  the  Principles  of  Taste.  By  Richard 
Payne  Knight.  London,  1805. 

Lectures  on  Art.     By  Washington  Allston.     New  York,  1850. 

An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  ^Esthetics.  By  James  C.  Moffat, 
Professor  of  Greek  in  the  College  of  New  Jersey,  Princeton.  Cin- 
^cinnati,  1856. 

^Esthetics;  or,  The  Science  of  Beauty.  By  John  Bascom,  Profes- 
sor in  Williams  College. 

Elements  of  Art  Criticism.  By  G.  W.  Samson,  D.D.,  President 
of  Columbian  College,  Washington,  D.  C.  Philadelphia,  1867. 

Art  Thoughts.    By  James  Jackson  Jarves.     New  York,  1869. 

A  General  View  of  the  Fine  Arts.  Fourth  edition.  New  York, 
1851. 

The  Literary  Works  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds.     London,  1846. 

Modern  Painters,  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture,  Lectures  on  Art, 
%v.,  drv.  By  John  Ruskin, 

Imitative  Art.     By  Frank  Howard.     London. 


Vlll  PREFACE. 

Joseph  Guilt.  Encyclopaedia  of  Architecture,  Historical,  Theoret- 
ical, and  Practical.  London,  1842. 

John  Billington.     The  Architectural  Director.     London,  1848. 

James  Feriptsson.  History  of  Architecture  in  all  Countries,  from 
the  earliest  times  to  the  present  day.  London,  1865. 

John  Henry  Parker,  Introduction  to  the  study  of  Gothic  Archi- 
tecture. Oxford  and  London,  1867. 

.  Concise  Glossary  of  Terms  used  in  Grecian,  Ro- 
man, Italian,  and  Gothic  Architecture.  Oxford  and  London,  1866. 

History  and  Rudiments  of  Architecture.     New  York,  1853. 

Wonders  of  Architecture.     New  York,  1870. 

The  Architecture  of  Country  Houses.  By  C.  J.  Downing.  New 
York,  1850. 

Rural  Homes.     By  Gervase  Wheeler.     New  York,  1852. 

Homes  for  the  People.     By  Gervase  Wheeler.     New  York,  1855. 

The  Landscape  Gardening  and  Landscape  Architecture  of  the  late 
Humphrey  Repton,  Esq.  By  J.  C.  Loudon,  F.  L.  S.  London,  1840. 

Practical  Landscape  Gardening.     By  G.  W.  Kern.     Cincinnati, 

I855- 

Allan  Cunningham"1  s  Lives  of  the  most  eminent  British  Painters 
and  Sculptors.  Am.  ed.  1831. 

Richter's  Manual  of  Harmony.  Translated  by  John  P.  Morgan. 
New  York,  1867. 

L.  Cherubini.  A  Course  of  Counterpoint  and  Fugue.  Trans- 
lated by  J.  A.  Hamilton.  London,  1841. 

Logger's  System  of  the  Science  of  Music,  Harmony,  and  Practical 
Composition. 

Adolph  Bernard  Marx.  Theory  and  Practice  of  Musical  Com- 
position. New  York,  1852. 

L.  H.  Southard.     Course  of  Harmony.     Boston,  1855. 

William  Gardiner.     Music  of  Nature.     Boston,  1838. 

Turner's  Vocal  Guide.     Boston,  1836. 

Mendelssohn's  Letters. 

Life  of  Mozart. 

Cousin's  Histories  of  Philosophy.  Lectures  on  the  True,  tha 
Beautiful,  and  the  Good,  &c. 


PREFACE.  IX 

Cours  d' Esthetique  par  Jouffroy.     Paris,  1845. 

An  Essay  on  the  Nature,  the  End,  and  the  Means  of  Imitation  in 
the  Fine  Arts.  Translated  from  the  French  of  M.  Quatremere  de 
Quincy.  London,  i8»" 

The  Fine  Arts — their  Nature  and  Relations.  By  M.  GuizoL 
Translated,  with  the  assistance  of  the  author,  by  George  Grove. 
Second  edition.  London,  1855. 

Du  Fresnoy,  de  Arte  Graphica.     With  Notes  by  Sir  J.  Reynolds. 

Vasari.     Vite  de'  piu  Eccelenti  Pittori.  Scultori.  e  Architetti. 

F.  T.  Vischer.  ^Esthetik,  oder  Wissenschaft  des  Schones.  1846 
—1858. 

Robert  Zimmerman.  Geschichte  der  ^Esthetik  als  Philosophische 
Wissenschaft,  1858. 

Hermann  Lotze.    Geschichte  der  ^Esthetik  in  Deutschland,  1868. 

Wilhelm  Hebensireit.  Wissenschaftliche-literarische  Encyclopa- 
die  der  ^Esthetik,  1848. 

Joh.   Winckelmann's  Werke.     Stuttgart,  1847. 

Goethe's  Werke. 

Schiller's  Werke. 

Herder's  Werke. 

Lessing,  Laokoon. 

Kant's  Kritik  der  Urtheilungen  und  Beobachtungen  tiber  das 
Gef iihl  des  Schonen  und  Erhabenen. 

Solger's  Vorlesungen  iiber  die  ^Esthetik.     1829. 

Hf gel's  ^Esthetik. 

If inkel's  Allgemeine  ^Esthetik.     1847. 

Oeser's  Briefe  an  eine  Jungfrau,  iiber  die  Hauptgegenstande  der 
^Esthetik.  Leipzig,  1870. 

Wilhelm  Lubke.  History  of  Art  Translated  by  F.  E.  BunnelL 
Second  edition.  London,  1869. 


CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTION.  —  §  i.  METHOD  OF  STUDY. 


BOOK    I. 

NATURE    OF   BEAUTY. 

CHAPTER  I. — BEAUTY  IN  THE  CONCRETE — THE  RAINBOW. 
— §  2.  Experience  of  the  Rainbow  Complex.  §  3.  Consists  of  Sen- 
sation anoPerception.  § 4.  Intuition  oft  Power.  §-5.  Of^Tntelli- 
gence.  §6.  Qf*  Freedom.  §7.  OfLove.  §8.  Of^pirit. 

CHAPTER  II. — ELEMENTS  OF  BEAUTY.— §9.  Three  Constit- 
uents in  the  Experience  ot  Beauty.  §  10.  Matter.  §  u.  Idea. 
§  12.  Form.  §  13.  Three  Elements  of  Beauty. 

CHAPTER  III.— BEAUTY  OBJECTIVE.— §  14.  .Theory  of  Asso- 
ciation. §15.  Its  Origin.  §  16.  Opposed  by  the 'Common  Sense 
of  Men.  §17.  ByTTanguage.  §  1 8.— Unsupported.  §i9/MDoes 
not  Account  for  the  Experience  of  Beauty.  §  20.  Subjective  The- 
ory. §§21.22.  Identity  with  Pleasure.  §23.  Proofs  from /Com- 
mon Sense..  §24.  FromnCangnage.  §25.  From  Manifestations. 
§  26.  From/Universal  Consciousness. 

CHAPTER  IV.— THE  UNIVERSALITY  OF  BEAUTY.— §27.  Uni- 
versaiity  of  Beauty  Denied  in  Theories  of  Association.  §28.  And 
of  Tleasure.  §  29.  And  of  Utility.  §  30.  Doctrine  Involved  in  the 
Analysis  Given.  §31.  Not  Contradicted  by  Facts.  §32.  Appre- 
hension of  Beauty  as  Dependent  on  Culture.  §33.  Necessary 
Principles  of  Taste.  §  34.  Diversity  of  Tastes. 

(xi) 


Xll  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  V.— THE  RELATIVENESS  OF  BEAUTY.— §35.  Kinds 
of  Relativeness  ;  of  Degree.  §36.  Of  Kind;  External.  §37.  In- 
ternal. 

CHAPTER  VI.— THE  IMAGINATION.— §  38.  Imagination  Cor- 
relative of  Form  ;  Passive  and  Active.  §  39.  Commensurate  with 
Beauty.  §40.  Nomenclature.  §41.  Place  among  Mental  Facul- 
ties; Theory  of  Burke.  §42.  Imagination  not  Perception.  §43. 
Nor  Intuition.  §44.  Nor  Judgment.  §45.  Relation  to  Form. 

CHAPTER  VII.  —  ESTHETIC  SCIENCE.  —  §  46.  Coordinate 
with  Logic  and  Ethics.  §  47.  Has  Scientific  Matter.  §  48.  Founded 
on- Experience.  §  49.  Its  Object  the  Beautiful  in  the  Fullest  Sense. 
§  50.  History :  Baumgarten,  in  Germany ;  in  France ;  in  Great 
Britain;  in  America.  §  51.  Grecian  Theories.  §  52.  British. 
§  53.  French.  §  54.  German. 


BOOK  II. 

KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

CHAPTER  I.  —  PRINCIPLE  OF  DIVISION.  —  §  55.  Division 
Founded  on  Essential  Attributes.  §  56.  Distinctions  of  Kind 
and  Degree.  §  57.  Cautions  as  to  Use  of  Terms.  §  58.  As  to 
Classifying. 

CHAPTER  II.— GRADATIONS  OF  BEAUTY.— §59.  Gradations 
of  Beauty.  §60.  Of  Perfect  Beauty.  §  6 1.  Of  Imperfect  Beauty. 
§  62.  Subjective  Gradations. 

CHAPTER  III.— IDEAL  BEAUTY.— §63.  General  Divisions. 
§64.  Of  Action  and  Repose.  §65.  Intellectual  Beauty.  §66.  Of 
Truthfulness.  §  67.  Of  Fitness.  §  68.  Of  Unity.  §  69.  Of  Har- 
mony. §70.  Of  Contrast.  §71.  Of  Proportion.  §72.  Of  Sym- 
metry. §73.  Of  Esthetic  Number.  §74.  Generic  Beauty.  §75. 
Recognition  in  Theories  of  Beauty  ;  Utility.  §  76.  Unity  in  Variety. 
§  77.  Order  and  Proportion.  §  78.  Emotive  Beauty.  §  79.  Free 
Beauty  or  Grace.  §  80.  Recapitulation. 

CHAPTER  IV.— MATERIAL  BEAUTY.— §  81.  Kinds;  Inorganic 
Beauty.  §  82.  Organic  Beauty.  §  83.  Sentient  Beauty.  §  84. 


CONTENTS.  Xlll 

Spiritual  Beauty.  §  85.  Distinctions  of  the  Arts  in  respect  to 
Grades  of  Matter.  §  86.  Senses  Addressed  in  Beauty ;  Error  of 
Lord  Kames.  §  87.  Of  Burke.  §  88.  Of  German  and  French 
Theorists.  §89.  Source  of  Error.  §90.  ^Esthetic  Gradations  of 
the  Senses.  §91.  Classification  of  Arts  in  respect  to  the  Sense 
Addressed. 

CHAPTER  V.— FORMAL  BEAUTY.— §  92.  Three  General  Divis- 
ions. §  93.  I.  Artistic  Beauty.  §  94.  II.  Free  Beauty  and  Depen- 
dent Beauty.  §  95.  Distribution  of  the  Arts  as  Free  and  De- 
pendent §  96.  III.  Distinctions  founded  on  the  Revelation  Itself. 
§  97.  Proper  Beauty.  §  98.  The  Sublime.  §  99.  Authorities. 
§  loo.  Subdivisions  of  the  Sublime.  §  101.  The  Comic.  §  102. 
Subdivisions  of  the  Comic  :  (i),  the  Pretty.  §  103.  (2),  Proper 
Comic. 


BOOK  III. 

LAWS   OF   BEAUTY. 

CHAPTER  I. — NATURE  AND  DIVISIONS. — §  104.  Laws  Essen- 
tial Attributes.  §105.  Twofold  Division  of  Laws  :  (i).  Of  Produc- 
tion; (2).  Of  Interpretation.  §  106.  Beauty  of  Nature  and  of  Art 

CHAPTER  II.— LAWS  OK  IDEAL.— §  107.  Selection.  §  108. 
Earnest  Study.  §109.  Conformity  to  Laws  of  Mind.  §110. 
Truthfulness.  §  m.  Catholicity.  §  112.  Conformity  to  Laws  of 
Feeling.  §  113.  To  Laws  of  Goodness. 

CHAPTER  III.— LAW  OF  MATERIAL.— §  1 14.  Range  of  Selec- 
tion. §115.  In  reference  to  Idea.  §  116.  To  Mediate  or  Imme- 
diate Form. 

CHAPTER  IV.— LAW  OF  FORM.— §  117.  Method.  §  118. 
I.  Laws  of  Style — Naturalness.  §119.  Truthfulness  and  Catho- 
licity, §  120.  Sympathy.  §  121.  Grace.  §  122.  II.  Laws  of  De- 
sign: Threefold.  §123.  (i).  Mechanical.  §124.  (2).  Artistic. 
§  125.  Regard  to  End  and  Form.  §  126.  Harmony  of  Both.  §  127. 
(3).  Decorative.  §  128.  Subordinate  to  Principal  Design.  §  129. 
Subservient  §  130.  Conventionalism.  §  131.  III.  Laws  of  Expres- 
sion— Division.  §132.  Proper  Beauty.  §  133.  The  Sublime. 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

§134.  Representation  of  the  Sublime  in  Art.     §135.  The  Comic; 
§  136.  Its  Domain.     §  137.  Its  Laws. 

CHAPTER  V. — SPECIAL  LAWS  —  ARCHITECTURE.  —  §138. 
Origin  and  Threefold  Law.  §  139.  Law__o£  Idea.  §  140.  Two 
Procedures — to  Meet  Ends  and  Express  Ideas.  §  141.  Applied 
to  Domestic  Architecture.  §  142.  Religious.  §  143.  Civil.  §  144. 
Other  Structures.  §145.  Law  of  Material.  §146.  Stone.  §147. 
Brick.  §  148.  Wood.  §  149.  Iron.  §  150.  Outline.  §  151.  Light 
and  Shade.  §  152.  Color.  §§  153,  154.  Law  of  Mechanical  De- 
sign. §  155.  Law  of  Artistic  Design,  §  156.  Law  of  Support. 
§  157.  Of  Intellectual  Beauty.  §  158.  Of  Unity.  §  159.  Of  Con- 
trast.  §  1 60.  Of  ^Esthetic  Number.  §  161.  Of  Proportion.  §162. 
Of  Symmetry.  §  163.  Of  Harmony.  §  164.  Exemplifications  in 
History  of  Architecture.  §  165.  Grecian  Architecture.  §  166. 
The  Doric.  §  167.  The  Parthenon.  §  168.  The  Ionic.  §  169. 
The  Corinthian.  170.  The  Tuscan  and  Composite.  §171.  Roman 
Architecture.  §  172.  Pantheon.  §  173.  Coliseum.  §  174.  St. 
Peter's.  §  175.  St.  Sophia.  §  176.  Roman  CrossvaulL  §  177. 
Gothic  Architecture — Pointed  Arch.  §  178.  The  Buttress.  §179. 
The  Groined  Vault.  §  180.  Characteristic  Effects  of  the  Dif- 
ferent Styles.  §  181.  The  Future  of  Architectural  Art.  §  182. 
Law  of  Decorative  Design.  §183.  Decoration  by  New  Material. 
§  184.  By  Richer  Treatment— Moldings.  §  185.  By  New  Deco- 
ration. 

CHAPTER  VI.— SPECIAL  LAWS— LANDSCAPE.— §  186.  Name 
and  Sphere.  §  187.  Origin  in  Want  of  Food.  §  188.  Associated 
Wants.  §  189.  Law  of  Idea.  §  190.  Economic  Ideas.  §  191. 
Esthetic  Ideas.  §  192.  Law  of  Material  —  Selection.  §  193. 
Use — In  Accordance  with  Nature.  §  194.  In  Reference  to  Sense 
Addressed.  §  195.  Law  of  Mechanical  Design.  §  196.  Law  of 
./Esthetic  Design — Threefold  Principle.  §197.  (i),  Subordinate  to 
Mechanical  Design.  §  198.  (2),  Address  to  the  Imagination  chiefly 
under  Optical  Principles.  §  199.  Position  of  Observer.  §  200. 
Position  of  Object.  §201.  Nature  of  Light.  §202.  (3),  Con- 
formity to  Rational  Nature.  §  203.  Exemplifications.  §  204.  Geo- 
metric Landscape.  §205.  Pseudo-Natural.  §206.  Picturesque. 
§  207.  Expressive  or  True  Artistic.  §  208.  Law  of  Decorative 
Design. 

CHAPTER  VII.— SPECIAL  LAWS  —  SCULPTURE.  —  §  209.    A 


CONTENTS.  XV 

Free  Art.  §210.  Origin.  §211.  Law  of  Idea.  §212.  Classes  of 
Ideals.  §213.  Pure  Originals.  §214.  Subjects  from  Observation. 
§  215.  Idealized  Subjects.  §  216.  Selection.  §  217.  Law  of 
Material.  §218.  Coloring.  §219.  Laws  of  Use — (i).  In  Accord- 
ance with  its  own  Nature,  §  220.  (2).  In  Accordance  with  Nature 
of  Light.  §221.  Law  of  Form.  §222.  Law  of  Artistic  Design — 
Optical  Principles.  §  223.  Proper  Statuary.  §  224.  Relief  Work. 
§  225.  Intaglio.  §  226.  Unity.  §  227.  Contrast.  §  228.  Esthetic 
Number.  §  229.  Proportion.  §  230.  Symmetry  and  Harmony. 
§  231.  Exemplifications — Egyptian.  §  232,  Grecian.  §  233. 
Modern. 

CHAPTER  VIIL— SPECIAL  LAWS— PAINTING.— §  234.  Origin. 
§  235.  Law  of  Idea — Subjects.  §  236.  Departments — Portrait,  His- 
torical, Landscape,  Genre,  Still  Life.  §  237.  Law  of  Material. 
§238.  Three  Gradations  in  the  Use  of  Light— Outline,  Shade, 
Color.  §  239.  Instruments  and  Means.  §  240.  Surface.  §  241. 
Use  of  Material.  §  242.  Law  of  Form.  §  243.  Twofold  Law  of 
Artistic  Design  —  (i),  Of  Light.  §244.  Linear  Perspective 
Graphic  Projection.  §  245.  Shading.  §  246.  Color.  §  247.  (2), 
Intellectual  Principles.  §  248.  Exemplifications — Egyptian.  §249. 
Grecian.  §250.  Roman  and  Byzantian.  §251.  Modern. 

CHAPTER  IX.— SPECIAL  LAWS  — Music.  — §252.  Origin; 
Rank.  §  253.  Law  of  Idea.  §  254.  Kinds  of  Feeling  —  Simple 
Feeling.  §  255.  Sympathy.  §  256.  Hope  and  Fear.  §  257.  De- 
grees of  Feeling.  §  258.  Music  must  Express  Feeling  as  its  One 
Idea.  §  259.  Condition  of  Musical  Culture.  §  260.  Law  of 
Material.  §  261.  Fourfold  Variation  of  Sound — (i),  Pitch.  §262. 
Diatonic  Scale.  §  263.  Major  and  Minor  Intervals.  §  264 
Chords.  §  265.  Modulation..  §  266.  Skips  and  Slides.  §  267. 
Counterpoint.  §  268.  Imitation ;  Fugue.  §  269.  (2),  Force ;  Dy- 
namics. §  270.  (3),  Quality.  §  271.  Quantity,  §  272.  Twofold 
Law  of  Material.  §  273.  Law  of  Form.  §  274.  Artistic  Design  ; 
Rhythm.  §  275.  Melody.  §  276.  Harmony.  §  277.  Dynamics. 
§278.  Unity.  §  279.  ^Esthetic  Number.  §  280.  Contrast  §281. 
Proportion.  §  282.  Symmetry  and  Harmony.  §  283.  Moral  Rela- 
tions. §  284.  Exemplifications — History  ;  Antiquity.  §285. 
Greece.  §  286.  Italy.  §  287.  Germany.  §  288.  France  and 
England. 

CHAPTER  X.— SPECIAL  LAWS— DISCOURSE  ;  POETRY.— §  289. 


XVI  CONTENTS. 

Antiquity  and  Rank.  §  290.  Word.  §  291.  Origin  —  Oratorj 
and  Poetry.  §  292.  Law  of  Idea  in  Poetry.  §  293.  Subjects — (i), 
Ideas  of  Truth — Didactic  Poetry.  §  294.  (2),  Ideas  of  Feeling — 
Elegiac  Poetry.  §  295.  (3),  Ideas  of  Action — Epic  and  Dramatic 
Poetry.  §  296.  Poetic  Idea  must  be  treated  as  one  of  Thought. 
§  297.  Law  of  Material ;  Word  sounds.  §  298.  Prosody.  §  299. 
Assonance — Initial  or  Alliterative,  and  Terminal  or  Rhyme.  §  300. 
Rhythm ;  Founded  on  Accent  and  Quantity.  §  301.  Melody. 
§  302.  Harmony.  §  303.  Words  as  Symbols.  §  304.  Law  of 
Form;  Use  of  Language  both  as  Oral  and  as  Symbolical.  §  305. 
Use  of  Melody.  §306.  Use  of  Harmony.  §307.  Use  of  Imagery. 
§  308.  Use  of  Idea ;  Intellectual  Elements  of  Beauty.  §  309. 
Emotive  Elements.  §310.  Exemplifications — Hebrew  Poetry. 
§311.  Hindoo.  §312.  Grecian.  §313.  Roman.  §314.  Modern 
-—Italian.  §315.  Spanish.  §  316.  Portuguese.  §317.  French, 
§318.  Teutonic.  §319.  German.  §320.  English. 

CHAPTER  XI.  —  INTERPRETATION  OF  BEAUTY. —  §321. 
Nature.  §  322.  Method.  §  323.  I.  The  Subjective  Laws — ^Es- 
thetic Sensibility.  §  324.  Its  Conditions — (i),  Impressible.  §325. 
(2),  Closeness  of  Communication.  §  326.  (3),  Entire  Surrender. 
§  327.  As  Belonging  to  an  Active  Nature.  §  328.  Sympathetic. 
§329.  Intelligent.  §330.  Moral.  §331.  II.  The  Objective  Laws. 
§  332.  Recognition  of  Medium.  §  333.  Of  Activity.  §  334.  Of 
a  Revelation.  §335.  Of  Intelligence.  §336.  Of  Moral  Elements. 
§337.  Special  Applications  of  these  Laws  to  the  Arts  —  (i),  to 
Architecture.  §  338.  (2),  To  Landscape.  §  339.  (3),  To  Sculpture. 
§340.  (4),  To  Painting.  §341.  (5),  To  Music.  §342.  (6),  To 
Poetry. 


•     BOOK   IV. 

RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 
CHAPTER  I.— INTRODUCTORY  VIEW.— §343.  Method. 

CHAPTER  II. — THE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL  TO  TH& 
TRUE  AND  THE  GOOD. — §  344.  The  Three  Ideas.  §  345.  The 
False,  the  Ugly,  and  the  Bad.  §  346.  Phases  of  the  Same.  §  347. 
Every  Object  True,  Beautiful,  and  Good.  §  348.  As  Determined  by 
Object  §  349.  Confirmation  from  Psychology. 


CONTENTS.  XVI 1 

CHAPTER  III.— THE  RELATIONS  OF  ESTHETICS  TO  LOGIC 
AND  ETHICS. — §350.  Mutual  Interdependence.  §351.  Proof  from 
Esthetic  Science.  §  352.  From  Logical  Science.  §  353.  From 
Ethical  Science.  §  354.  From  their  Conterminous  Definition. 
§  355.  From  History. 

CHAPTER  IV.— THE  USES  OF  BEAUTY.— §  356.  Reason  for 
the  Inquiry.  §357.  The  pleasures  of  Beauty.  §358.  Their  Rank 
and  Worthiness.  §359.  Susceptible  of  Indefinite  Increase.  §360. 
The  Ministry  of  Beauty  to  the  Taste  and  to  Art  §  361.  To  the 
Intelligence.  §362.  To  the  Moral  Nature. 

CHAPTER  V.  — THE  USES  OF  ESTHETICS.  —  §  363.  As  a 
Science  of  the  Highest  Rank.  §  364.  The  Gate  of  all  Knowledge. 
§365.  Aid  to  the  Science  of  the  True.  §  366.  To  Ethical  Science. 
§  367.  To  Culture  Generally. 


INTRODUCTION. 


METHOD   OF   STUDY. 

§  I.  METHOD  in  the  study  of  any  fact 

Stages  of  method.     "  .  .  *  ' 

of  experience  requires  ot  us  that  we 
proceed  in  order  by  the  following  stages,  viz : — 

First,  that  we  ascertain  precisely  the 

i.  Observation.  x   . 

fact  which  we  are  to  study  in  its  essen- 
tial nature  and  properties  : — 

Secondly,  that  out  of  the  world  of  facts 

a.  Generalization.  . 

of  our  experience  we  then  select  those 
that  possess  this  nature  with  these  properties  in 
order  that  we  may  group  and  classify  them  : — 

Thirdly,  that   we   then    interpret  the 

3.  Laws. 

laws  which  are  revealed  in  these  facts 
thus  generalized  ;  and 

.    .         Fourthly,  that    we  apply  the  science 

4.  Application.  F  J 

thus  attained  to  the  ends  proper  to  all 
scientific  investigation,  either  theoretically  to  the 
advancement  of  truth  in  other  departments  of 
knowledge,  or  practically  to  the  improvement  of 
our  own  personal  well-being. 


2  METHOD    OF   STUDY. 

Our   method,   accordingly,  in  investigating  the 
phenomenon  of  Beauty,  will  be  to  consider — 

I.  Tne  Essential    Elements   or   Properties   of 
Beauty ; 

II.  The  Classification  of  Objects  of  Beauty  ; 

III.  The  Laws  which  govern  in  Beauty  ; 

IV.  The  Relations  and  Uses  of  Beauty. 

Or  more  briefly  still : 

1.  The  Nature  of  Beauty; 
II.  The  Kinds  of  Beauty; 

III.  The  Laws  of  Beauty; 

IV.  The  Uses  of  Beauty. 


BEAUTY    IN    THE    CONCRETE. 


BOOK  I. 

NATURE    OF     BEAUTY. 


CHAPTER    I. 
BEAUTY  IN  THE  CONCRETE THE   RAINBOW. 

§  2.  Our  first  step  is  to  find  an  instance  of 
beauty  ; — an  instance  in  which  we  undeniably  feel 
the  effects  of  what  we  call  beauty  ; — an  instance,  to 
speak  more  scientifically,  in  which  the  beautiful 
comes  into  our  experience.  We  are  to  take  first 
some  familiar  occasion  on  which  the  common  fact 
in  question  is  experienced  ;  and  then  our  next  step 
will  be  to  separate,  by  a  careful  analysis  of  the 
complicated  elements  of  the  phenomenon,  such  as 
are  essential  from  those  which  are  merely  associated 
with  it  whether  necessarily  or  accidentally. 

We  have  then,  all  of  us,  had  our  at- 
Beauty  instanced  tention  arrested  by  the  appearance, 

in  the  Rainbow.  * 

near  the  close  of  some  summer  day, 
of  a  bow  of  light,  exceedingly  brilliant,  and  of  va- 
rious hues,  and  in  form,  undeviatingly  circular, 
without  a  break  in  its  light  or  an  imperfection  in 
its  regular  outline,  arching  the  entire  circuit  of  the 
visible  heavens  before  us,  and  seemingly  resting  on 


4  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

a  dark,  chaotic  mass  of  cloud,  with  which  it  appears 
to  be  connected  in  close  relationship.  The  out- 
ward sense  is  riveted  to  it  by  a  most  pleasurable 
sensation  and  the  inner  spirit  by  a  most  loving  ad- 
miration. 

This  is  the  familiar  phenomenon  of  the  Rainbow; 
— the  outer  occasion  and  the  inner  experience.  It 
will  be  unhesitatingly  accepted  as  an  instance  in 
which  the  Beautiful  enters  into  our  experience.  It 
has  been  so  in  all  ages.  "  Look,"  says  the  Son  of 
Sirach,  "  Look  upon  the  Rainbow,  and  praise  him 
that  made  it ;  very  beautiful  it  is  in  its  brightness  ; 
it  encompasses  the  heavens  with  a  glorious  circle  ; 
and  the  hands  of  the  Most  High  have  bended  it." 
,  It  is  a  complex  phenomenon.  Let  us  seek  care- 
fully to  ascertain  its  constituting  elements  and  es- 
sential properties. 

§  3.  There  is,  in  the  first  place,  an  af- 

Sensation      and-        .  ,     , 

Perception  in  re-    fection  of  the  outward  sense  ; — there 

lation  to  Beauty. 

is  sensation.  The  eye  takes  in  an  ob- 
ject of  wonderful  brightness,  of  enchanting  hue ;  of 
vast  extension  and  of  most  perfect  outline.  The 
sense  is  vividly  impressed. 

There  is,  also,  together  with  this  lively  impres- 
sion on  the  sense,  an  intellectual  activity  awakened 
equally  decided  ; — there  is  perception.  The  mind 
perceives  a  portion  of  its  sensitive  organism  im- 
pressed from  without  itself,  and  thus  recognizes  an 
object  external  to  itself,  distinct  from  itself.  This 
sensation  in  which  we  are  passively  impressed  by 
the  object  and  this  perception  attending  it  in  which 
we  actively  recognize  the  object,  are  each  attended 


BEAUTY    IN    THE    CONCRETE.  5 

by  a  peculiar  pleasure.  The  eye  of  the  child, 
whose  intelligence  and  reason  have  been  developed 
only  to  the  lowest  degree,  fastens  upon  it  with  ob- 
vious delight.  This  pleasure,  however,  is  the  mere 
pleasure  of  sense.  It  is  not  the  feeling  of  beauty. 
Both  may  be  experienced  together.  One  may  pre- 
dominate at  one  time  or  in  one  mind ;  the  other, 
at  another  time  or  in  another  mind.  The  child 
feels  more  the  pleasure  of  seeing  ;  the  mature  mind 
is  more  absorbed  by  an  entirely  different  emotion. 
The  sight  is  necessary  to  the  latter.  It  is,  how- 
ever, only  indispensable  condition  of  it ;  not  the 
emotion  itself.  We  must  go  farther  in  our  study  to 
find  the  elements  of  this  emotion. 

§  4.  There  is,  further,  in  every  full  con- 
btuitioii  of  templation  of  the  bow,  the  recognition 

of  a  power  at  work  in  its  production.  It 
is,  indeed,  a  power  of  surpassing  energy — a  power 
bringing  a  dazzling  light  and  splendor  out  of  dark- 
ness and  gloom,  sudden  order  out  of  unmixed  chaos ; 
stretching  its  arm  over  a  vast  reach  of  the  heavens, 
and  holding  forth  its  glorious  work  over  a  space  we 
are  unable  to  measure  ;  moving  its  hand,  too,  in  its 
work  with  a  marvelous  skill  and  dexterity,  evincing 
a  shaping  as  well  as  a  producing  energy  as  it  blends 
with  matchless  taste  and  inimitable  delicacy  of 
touch  the  purest  of  hues  and  traces  its  arch  with 
mathematical  precision  and  exactness.  This  ele- 
ment of  a  recognized  present  power  of  marvelous 
energy  and  skill,  enters  into  our  mental  experience, 
and  necessarily  enters,  on  a  full  contemplation. 
The  recognition  of  this  present  power  is  a  fact  in 


O  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

our  experience  for  which  it  is  idle  to  attempt  to  ac- 
count on  any  other  supposition  than  that  the  power 
is  there,  to  be  recognized  by  every  beholding  spirit 
as  truly  as  the  outward  form  or  outward  brightness. 
This  element — power — it  may  be  remarked,  is 
not,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  term  is  now  techni- 
cally used,  perceived.  It  is  not  a  proper  object  of 
perception.  It  is  an  object  of  intuition; — the  mind 
intuits  it. 

§  5.  Besides  this  active  producing  pow- 
or  intelligence,  er,  a  full  and  true  contemplation  of 

this  phenomenon  universally  and  nec- 
essarily discovers  another  element — that  of  intelli- 
gence appearing  everywhere  in  the  order,  in  the 
interior  design,  in  the  relation  of  the  parts  to  one 
another  constituting  a  perfect  intellectual  whole. 
Every  part  stands  in  an  orderly  relation  to  every 
other ; — the  bow  to  the  portion  of  the  heavens  in 
which  it  is  placed  and  to  the  cloud  on  which  it  rests, 
as  well  as  to  the  eye  that  contemplates  it;  the 
parts  of  the  bow  itself  to  one  another,  in  the  out- 
line all  arranged  in  the  exactest  mathematical  order 
and  precision,  and  in  the  color,  each  hue  in  its  own 
place  and  mathematically  definable  relation  to  every 
other  in  position  and  in  shading.  So  precise  is 
this  order,  that,  given  any  portion  of  the  bow,  how- 
ever small,  the  mathematical  mind  can  reproduce 
every  other  part  and  reconstruct  in  idea  the  whole. 
This  order  is  as  objectively  real  as  the  power  that 
brought  the  bow  into  being  and  shaped  the  outline 
and  blended  the  various  hues,  or  the  cloud  and 
mass  of  raindrops  from  out  of  which  this  marvelous 


BEAUTY   IN   THE   CONCRETE.  7 

creation  is  produced.  Like  the  power,  it  is  not 
perceived,  but  intuited.  It  lies  beyond  the  mere 
matter,  and  is  revealed  through  it,  and  these  intui- 
tions of  power  and  of  order  are  accompanied  by 
the  proper  pleasure  which  attend  all  exercises  of  the 
intuitive  faculty,  varying  in  degree  with  the  charac- 
ter of  the  idea  or  object  and  the  varying  character 
and  condition  of  the  intuiting  spirit,  but,  as  a  dis- 
tinct kind  of  pleasurable  exertion,  of  a  higher  rank 
than  the  pleasures  of  sensation  or  of  perception. 

§  6.  Still  further,  a  full  contemplation 
of  Freedom.  of  the  bow  reveals  the  elements  of 

freedom.  The  power  which  we  have 
intuited,  and  which  we  have  found  to  move  in  intel- 
ligence, we  find  to  work,  also,  in  perfect  freedom. 
The  hand  that  has  laid  that  bow  so  gently  on  the 
bosom  of  the  storm-cloud,  that  has  so  delicately 
rounded  its  outline  and  blended  its  hues,  has  moved 
without  checks  or  hindrances  from  within  or  from 
without.  The  perfect  gracefulness  that  marks  its 
forming  work  reveals  a  freedom  unimpaired  and 
without  defect  and  unobstructed  by  any  other  outer 
force.  This  element,  too,  is  necessarily  given  in  a 
true  and  full  contemplation,  and  is  accompanied 
by  its  own  peculiar  pleasure. 

§  7.  Once  more,  a  full  contemplation  of 
of  Love.  the  bow  reveals  to  us  the  element  of 

love.  The  heavenly  Iris  is  sent  on  a 
mission,  bearing  a  purpose.  There  is  good-will, 
love,  expressed.  The  pleasure  which  attends  each 
step  of  the  contemplation,  is  the  purposed  fruit  and 
result  of  the  revelation,  and  demonstrates  the  love 


8  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

that  is  behind  and  within.  Hence  its  attractive 
power  upon  our  souls,  and  the  loving  sympathy 
which  it  awakens  in  grateful  response  in  our  bosoms. 
We  recognize  accordingly  and  by  necessity,  a  spir- 
it's presence  with  the  same  attributes  as  essentially 
characterize  our  own  spirits  ;  and  this  recognition 
is  attended  by  the  peculiar  pleasure  of  sympathy. 

§  8.  Now  as,  when  the  form  and  the 
or  Spirit  color  are  given  to  us  in  the  first  stage 

of  our  contemplation — first  not  in  time 
but  in  logical  order — as  objects  of  sensation  and 
perception,  we  at  once  and  necessarily  suppose  a 
material  substance  in  which  these  properties  in- 
here ;  as  these  qualities  are  the  signs,  the  expres- 
sions, the  revelations  of  the  matter  to  which  they 
belong ;  so  precisely  when,  in  the  second  stage  of 
our  contemplation,  the  elements  of  power,  of  intel- 
ligence, of  freedom,  and  of  love  are  given  to  us,  we 
as  necessarily  and  immediately  suppose  an  immate- 
rial, a  spiritual  substance  in  which  these  properties 
inhere.  Power,  intelligence,  freedom,  love,  are  the 
signs,  the  expressions,  the  revelations  of  a  spiritual 
being,  directly  or  indirectly  concerned  wherever 
they  appear. 


ELEMENTS    OF    BEAUTY.  9 

CHAPTER   II. 

ELEMENTS   OF  BEAUTY. 

Three  constitu-  §  9-  We  have  found  an  object  which 
ri"nc]naifexth;  the  world  have  agreed  to  call  beauti- 
ful :  an  occasion  on  which  the  beautiful 
undeniably  enters  into  our  experience.  In  tb?t 
experience  we  have  found,  first,  that  which  the 
world  have  agreed  to  call  matter,  producing  in  us 
as  passively  affected  by  it  sensation,  and  as  act- 
ively determined  by  it  perception.  We  have  found, 
secondly,  certain  attributes  just  as  certainly  and  as 
necessarily  given  to  us  :  those  of  power,  intelli- 
gence, freedom,  love, — belonging  to  what  the  world 
have  agreed  to  call  immaterial  and  spiritual.  In 
other  words,  we  have  found  matter  and  spirit — 
matter  revealing  to  us  spirit,  or  spirit  revealing 
itself  to  us  through  matter.  Whatever  else  may  be 
true  of  this  experience,  whatever  else  may  enter 
into  our  experience,  these  three  things  are  undeni- 
ably present :  first,  something  which  we  call  matter 
through  which  something  is  revealed  to  us;  sec- 
ondly, something  revealing  itself  which  we  may  call 
spirit ;  and  thirdly,  the  actual  revelation  of  this  re- 
vealing element  or  spirit  in  and  through  this  matter. 
These  three  constituents  are  not  only  present  in 
the  scene,  but  they  are  indispensable  to  whatever 
we  call  an  experience  of  the  beautiful  in  contem- 
plating it. 


IO  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

§  10.  That  which  we  immediately  rec- 
Matter  in  beauty,  ognize  through  our  outward  senses  in 

the  object  is  called  matter.  What  this 
is  in  its  essential  nature  we  have  no  knowledge ; 
we  only  know  that  it  is  not  mind,  spirit  ;  it  is  en- 
tirely foreign  to  our  rational  natures,  to  our  intelli- 
gence, to  our  love.  When  we  seek  to  define  it,  we 
can  only  say  of  it,  that  it  has  not  the  properties  of 
an  intelligent  nature  ;  it  is  inert,  it  has  no  power  to 
move  itself;  it  is  formless,  is  incapable  in  itself  of 
coming  into  our  intelligence  until  it  has  been  shaped 
or  formed  by  some  mind  ;  it  is  chaos,  emptiness, 
being  devoid  of  all  intelligible  elements  or  proper- 
ties and  only  capable  of  being  filled  and  so  charac- 
terized by  some  acting  mind.  Matter  is  best  defined, 
although  even  then  but  very  defectively,  as  that 
which  may  receive  and  retain  mind. 

In  its  primary  and  more  familiar  use,  the  term 
matter  is  applied  to  that  which  we  can  see  or  feel. 
This  is  gross,  sensible  matter.  In  a  derived  mean- 
ing it  is  applied  to  whatever  may  receive  and  retain 
any  act  or  state  of  mind,  although  not  visible  or 
tangible,  so  that  one  state  of  mind  may  be  the  mat- 
ter in  which  another  may  embody  itself.  Thus  a 
feeling  of  joy  may  be  embodied  in  a  train  of  thought, 
which  then  becomes  the  matter  in  which  the  joy 
expresses  itself.  This  derivative  use  of  the  term 
will  be  made  more  clear  in  the  sequel.  From  these 
uses  of  the  term  should  be  carefully  distinguished 
another  use  which  is  very  common,  in  which  it  is 
employed  to  denote  the  thought  or  feeling  as  shaped 
or  determined  or  embodied,  including  both  that 


ELEMENTS    OF    BEAUTY.  II 

which  is  revealed  and  that  through  which  it  is  re- 
vealed. Thus  we  speak  of  the  matter  of 'a  poem, 
meaning  by  the  expression  the  thought  or  senti- 
ment, the  object  or  scene  which  is  shaped  and 
embodied  in  the  poem. 

§  ii.   The  second  element  mentioned, 
-idea"  beauty    that   which   is   revealed   through    the 

matter  or  is  shaped  in  it,  is  called  idea. 
By  this  term  is  denoted  any  manifested  act  or  state 
of  mind  ;  any  expressed  thought,  or  feeling,  or  pur- 
pose, or  disposition.  We  found  in  the  contemplation 
of  the  bow  ideas  of  power,  intelligence,  freedom, 
love.  These  are  manifestations  of  spirit  or  mind. 
Wherever  we  recognize  either  one  of  them,  we 
recognize  there  a  sure  and  certain  work  of  mind. 
None  of  them  belongs  to  what  we  call  matter,  for 
matter  in  itself  has  no  power,  being  absolutely  inert ; 
has  no  intelligence,  no  freedom,  no  affection.  As 
we  have  seen,  it  is  characteristic  of  matter  that  it  is 
utterly  destitute  of  these  attributes.  The  most  and 
best  that  we  can  attribute  to  matter  is  that  it  may 
receive  these  ideas,  may  be  impressed  by  them, 
and  being  inert  in  itself,  may  or  must  permanently 
retain  them,  until  they  are  displaced  by  some  cause 
out  of  itself.  It  is  heavy  ;  it  attracts  or  resists  ;  it 
gives  out  heat  or  light,  simply  because  it  has  re- 
ceived these  ideas  of  attractive,  repulsive,  heating, 
illuminating  force  and  retains  them  passively  till 
some  occasion  or  condition  comes  to  it,  when  it 
gives  up  what  it  had  received.  As  we  know  of  but 
two  kinds  of  being  —  matter  and  spirit  —  so  these 
ideas  of  power,  intelligence,  and  the  like,  which  are 


12  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

entirely  foreign  to  matter,  we  attribute  to  spirit. 
These  are  modes,  or  acts,  or  states  of  spirit,  and  the 
term  idea  is  employed  to  denote  any  such  mode  or 
act  or  state  when  manifested  or  expressed  in  matter 
of  whatever  kind. 

§  12.    The  third  element  mentioned  is 

Revelation  of  . 

idea  in  matter—    the  revelation  of  the  idea  in  the  matter. 

Form. 

It  is  not  idea  by  itself  without  relation 
to  the  matter,  nor  matter  by  itself,  nor  both  to- 
gether, viewed  otherwise  than  in  this  relation — that 
one  is  revealed  or  expressed  in  the  other  —  that 
necessarily  enters  in  any  proper  experience  of  the 
beautiful.  The  word  that  best  expresses  this  ele- 
ment is  form.  It  is  a  word  that  etymologically 
comes  from  a  root  denoting  to  see,  and  hence  to 
know,  to  apprehend.  Its  proper  meaning,  accord- 
ingly, is  an  object  of  sight,  knowledge,  apprehension, 
or  what  may  be  seen,  known,  or  apprehended.  It 
is  the  correlative  of  idea,  and  comes  from  the  same 
grammatical  root.  Idea  is  subjective  ;  form  is 
objective. 

§  12.   The  three  constituent  elements 

Three     elements  , 

of  beauty :  mat-    oi  beauty  are,  accordingly :  matter,  idea. 

ter,  idea,  form.  J  .  . 

form.  Matter  is  that  element  in  which 
idea  is  revealed.  Idea  is  that  which  is  revealed  in 
matter.  Form  is  the  revelation  itself  of  idea  in 
matter.  The  matter  of  the  bow  is  color  and  out- 
line. The  ideas  revealed  in  it  are  power,  intelli- 
gence, freedom,  love.  The  form  is  the  revelation 
or  expression  itself  of  these  ideas,  shaping  the  out- 
line and  attempering  the  light  so  that  the  ideas  shall 
be  expressed  in  it,  and  thus  may  be  recognized  and 
felt  by  the  mind  to  which  the  revelation  is  made. 


BEAUTY    OBJECTIVE.  13 


CHAPTER   III, 

BEAUTY     OBJECTIVE. 

§  14.  We  have  used  language  thus  far  which 
seems  to  imply  that  beauty  is  without  us  ;  that  it 
exists  distinct  and  independent  of  us  ;  that  it  comes 
into  our  experience  from  without  and  is  not  origi- 
nated within  us.  It  is  of  importance  to  investigate 
this  point  directly  and  closely  and  to  ascertain 
whether  such  expressions  as  import  such  an  object- 
ive reality  in  the  beautiful  are  to  be  understood 
literally  and  exactly.  We  speak  of  the  sun  rising, 
while  science  teaches  us  that  this  is  not  so :  that  it 
is  the  earth  really  that  moves.  May  it  not  be  so 
with  expressions  which  attribute  a  reality  to  beauty 
external  to  the  mind  that  feels  it.  In  fact,  the 
prevalent  theory  in  Great  Britain  and  in  English 
aesthetic  literature  has  denied  to  beauty  any  such 
outer  existence,  and  has  resolved  all  our  experience 
of  it  into  mere  association.  This  theory,  first  pro- 
pounded by  Mr.  Alison,  was  fully  carried  out  and 
perfected  by  Lord  Jeffrey  in  the  early  part  of  this 
century.  According  to  this  theory,  "  the  emotions 
which  we  experience  from  the  contemplation  of  sub- 
limity or  beauty  are  not  produced  by  any  physical 
or  intrinsic  quality  in  the  objects  which  we  contem- 
plate ;  but  by  the  recollection  or  conception  of 


14  NATURE   OF  BEAUTY. 

other  objects  which  are  associated  in  our  imagin- 
ations with  those  before  us  and  consequently  sug- 
gested by  their  appearance."  "  Things  are  not 
beautiful  in  themselves,  but  only  as  they  serve  to 
suggest  interesting  conceptions  to  the  mind."  Con- 
sequently, to  use  the  very  language  of  Lord  Jeffrey, 
a  friend's  "  poetry  or  his  slippers,  his  acts  of  bounty 
or  his  saddle-horse"  are  equally  beautiful,  inas- 
much as  they  all  alike  "  may  lead  to  the  same  chain 
of  interesting  remembrances." 

§  15.  This  theory  originated  in  an  op- 
its  origin.  position  to  certain  other  views  that  had 

gained  currency  on  the  nature  of  beauty. 
Like  most  theories  that  originate  in  this  way,  par- 
ticularly in  the  early  stages  of  a  science,  while 
effective  in  demolishing  the  false  or  imperfect,  it  is 
yet  to  be  characterized  as  partial  and  unsound. 
Mr.  Alison's  able  work  overthrew  those  theories 
which  founded  all  emotions  of  beauty  in  some  one 
principle,  as  of  relation,  utility,  order  and  design. 
It  as  effectually  overthrew  the  doctrine  that  matter 
is  beautiful  in  itself,  as  Mr.  Burke,  in  his  Theory  of 
the  Sublime  and  Beautiful,  seems  to  teach.  Mr. 
Alison  rather  ranked  himself  with  the  Platonic 
school  of  philosophers,  embracing  Lord  Shaftesbury 
and  Dr.  Hutcheson,  who  have  found  all  beauty  to 
consist  in  the  .idea  which  is  represented,  and  dis- 
tinctly maintains  in  his  conclusion  that  matter 
"derives  its  beauty  from  the  expression  of  mind." 
His  exposition,  however,  led  directly  to  the  bold 
skepticism  which  characterizes  Lord  Jeffrey's  specu- 
lations. Hume  had  already  maintained  that  "beauty 


BEAUTY  OBJECTIVE.  15 

is  no  quality  in  things  themselves."  Lord  Jeffrey 
accepts  this  teaching,  but  attempts  to  account  for 
the  rise  of  emotions  of  beauty  by  the  principle  of 
association. 

§  1 6.    This  doctrine  that  there  is  noth- 

Opposed  by  the      ]  .  .         i  r        i   •    i  i 

common  sense  of   ing  in  the  object  itsclt  which  awakens 

men-  •  r 

the  emotions  01  beauty  except  some 
accidental  association  of  it  with  our  past  experience 
is  rejected  by  the  common  sense  of  men.  No  un- 
sophisticated mind  hesitates  for  a  moment  to  ascribe 
the  admiration  and  delight  which  the  sight  of  the 
rainbow  occasions  directly  to  something  in  the  ob- 
ject itself,  independent  of  all  association  and  all 
experience.  It  is  difficult,  if  not  entirely  impossi- 
ble, to  conjecture  what  association  common  to  all 
men  it  is  which  is  excited  by  the  sight  of  the  bow 
producing  these  emotions  alike  in  all  ;  what  experi- 
ence common  to  all  it  connects  itself  with  so  as  to 
produce  this  universal  effect.  It  would  be  difficult 
to  persuade  a  candid  and  unbiased  beholder  that  it 
is  not  something  in  the  object  itself  which  affects 
him,  but  only  a  train  of  sentiment  in  his  own  mind 
to  which  his  admiration  and  delight  attach  them- 
selves ;  that  it  is  all  a  delusion  and  mistake  to 
attribute  the  beauty  he  feels  to  the  object ;  and  that 
he  unconsciously  and  illusively  transfers  the  effect 
from  the  train  of  associations  which  is  really  the 
center  and  source  of  his  admiration  to  the  bow 
which  is  simply  the  occasion  of  that  train  of  asso- 
ciations. It  would  be  as  difficult  to  convince  him 
of  this  as  to  convince  him  that  the  bell  which 
awakens  him  in  the  morning  and  becomes  thus  the 


1 6  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

occasion  of  his  rising  and  beholding  the  beauties  of 
the  dawn  is  the  real  object  of  his  admiration,  or  at 
least  as  truly  so  as  the  gold  and  purple  of  a  morn- 
ing sky.  There  is,  then,  this  strong  presumption 
against  the  doctrine,  that  the  common  sense  of  men 
recognizes  something  out  of  themselves,  something 
really  existing  which  of  itself  produces  the  emotions 
universally  ascribed  to  beauty. 

§  17.  The  universal  speech  of  men  is 
By  language.  opposed  to  this  theory.  Even  Lord 

Jeffrey  himself  everywhere  uses  lan- 
guage that  is  utterly  irreconcilable  with  his  theory. 
He  speaks  unqualifiedly  of  the  "  contemplation  of 
beauty "  as  if  beauty  was  something  that  is  truly 
an  object  of  contemplation.  He  speaks  of  the  "per- 
ception of  sublimity  or  beauty"  of  the  "objects  which 
have  the  power  of  exciting  these  emotions."  His 
language  sometimes  amounts  to  flat  contradiction 
of  his  theory,  as  when  in  laying  down  his  proposi- 
tion he  affirms  of  "the  emotions  we  receive  from 
the  contemplation  of  sublimity  or  beauty"  that  they 
"  are  not  original  emotions  nor  produced  directly 
by  any  qualities  in  the  objects  which  excite  them, 
but  are  reflections  or  '  images '  of  other  emotions 
which  we  have  already  experienced."'  Here  he 
speaks  of  beauty  as  something  that  can  be  contem- 
plated, and,  of  course,  an  object  distinct  from  the 
contemplating  mind.  He  speaks  also  of  certain 
objects  which  excite  the  emotions  received  from 
this  contemplation  of  them  or  perhaps  from  the 
contemplation  of  the  beauty  in  them  ;  and  then  in 
strange  confusion  he  speaks  of  the  emotions  received 


BEAUTY    OBJECTIVE.  I/ 

n-om  the  contemplation  of  beauty  as  only  reflections 
or  images  of  emotions  already  experienced.  The 
speech  of  men  has  so  fully  recognized  the  objective 
reality  of  beauty  that  the  very  utterance  of  a  theory 
that  controverts  this  common  doctrine  involves  ab- 
surdity and  contradiction. 

§  1 8.    Further,  the   argumentation  by 

Not      warranted          ,.._          1Trr  .          ,   .        , 

by    their  argu-    which  Lord  Jeffrey  sustains  his  theory 
shows  that  his  statement  is  far  broader 
than  his  arguments  warrant  or   than   he   himself 
really  believed.      His  aim  was  to  overthrow  the 
erroneous  doctrine  that  beauty  is  to  be  resolved 
into  some  one  specific  principle,  as  of  utility,  order, 
or  the  like,  and  the  opposite  doctrine  of  Burke  that 
beauty  consists  in  mere  qualities  of  matter.     In 
correcting  these  errors  he  has  fallen  himself  into 
the  error  of  resolving  all  beauty  into  accidental  as- 
sociation.    Yet  his  arguments  which  he  seems  to 
regard  as  convincing  in  the  case  prove  something 
far  different  from  this  ; — they  prove  that  while  all 
beauty  is  neither  utility,  nor  order,  nor  mere  re- 
lation, on  the  one  hand,  nor  mere  physical  qualities 
of  matter  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  yet  real,  while 
expressive  of  whatever  the  spirit  of  man  can  feel  or 
do.     His  argument  thus  shows  that  "  the  beauty  of 
a  living  and  sentient  creature  depends  upon  quali- 
ties peculiar  to  such  a  creature  rather  than  upon 
the  mere  physical  attributes."     The  beauty  of  an 
English  landscape,  also,  consists,  he  shows,  "  not  in 
the  mere  mixture  of  colors  and  forms,"  "but  in  the 
picture  of  human  happiness  that  is  presented  to  our 
imaginations  and  affections."     What  the  argument 


1 8  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

really  aimed  at  seems  then  not  to  show  that  all 
beauty  is  merely  subjective  with  nothing  objective 
to  determine  our  sense  of  it,  but  that  it  is  human 
feeling,  not  dead  matter,  which  forms  the  object  of 
our  emotions.  He  mistakes  in  supposing  that  the 
human  sympathy,  which  is  but  the  condition  of  our 
enjoying  the  beauties  of  a  landscape,  is  the  proper 
object  that  is  beautiful  in  our  contemplation  of  it. 
The  beauty  is  not  in  the  sympathy  ;  although  it 
may  be  true  that  a  being  destitute  of  all  human 
sympathy  would  be  incapable  of  discerning  the  com- 
fort and  enjoyment  which  are  presented  to  our  con- 
templation in  the  quiet,  the  order,  the  neatness,  the 
prolific  richness  of  cultivated  grounds  that  charac- 
terize the  supposed  landscape.  The  landscape  is 
beautiful  not  because  of  the  sympathy,  but  because 
of  these  ideas  so  well  revealed  in  it. 

§  19.   But  a  fatal  objection  to  the  theory 

Does      not      ac-  .  MI 

count  for   aii    that  the  emotions  we  ascribe  to  beauty 

beauty. 

are  produced  by  the  accidental  associr 
ation  in  whatever  way  of  the  object  with  our  past 
experience,  is  found  in  the  fact  that  many  objects 
which  are  thus  associated  with  past  feelings  of 
pleasure  are  not  as  such  recognized  by  us  as  beau- 
tiful. If  the  theory  be  correct,  whatever  is  thus 
associated  or  can  by  virtue  of  such  association 
awaken  a  train  of  feelings  and  imaginations  is  beau- 
tiful. Then  must,  in  fact,  as  Lord  Jeffrey  puts  it, 
"  the  saddle  horse  "  of  his  friend  be  equally  deserv- 
ing of  the  appellation  of  beautiful  as  his  "  poem  "  ; 
for  either  may  equally  awaken  the  train  of  agreeable 
associations  ;  the  one  as  well  as  the  other  may 


BEAUTY    OBJECTIVE.  IQ 

recall  the  absent  friend  and  bring  back  the  precious 

memories  associated  with  him. 

Hutcheson's  the-    §  2O.    There   is  another  mode  of  ex- 

ory  that    Ueauty         ...  ., 

is  dependent  on    plaining    the    experience    of    beauty 

contemplating  7 

minds.  adopted  by  some  writers  which  leads 

directly  to  the  same  skepticism.  Thus  Hutcheson, 
who  not  only  maintains  that  beauty  is  in  the  object, 
but  also  undertakes  to  show  what  quality  precisely 
it  is  which  makes  an  object  beautiful — which  he  finds 
to  be  "uniformity  amidst  variety,"  —  nevertheless 
suffers  himself  to  admit  that  "were  there  no  mind 
with  a  sense  of  beauty  to  contemplate  objects"  he 
could  not  see  how  they  could  be  called  beautiful. 
In  the  same  way  Solger,  a  German 
Soiger.  writer  on  aesthetics,  teaches  that  "beau- 

ty being  bare  form  is  solely  for  the 
percipient."  Such  teachings  involve  the  very  op- 
posite of  the  real  views  of  the  writers.  If  beauty 
ceases  where  there  is  no  mind  to  experience  it, 
then  clearly  it  can  have  no  independent  existence. 
But  the  bright  round  sun  would  not  cease  to  be 
bright  and  round  if  the  sense  of  sight  were  to  be 
everywhere  destroyed. 

§  21.    Still  another  very  common  mode 

Beauty  not  iden-  ... 

tkai  with  pleas-  of  representation  is  in  the  same  way 
liable  to  lead  to  skepticism  in  regard 
to  the  objective  reality  of  beauty.  It  is  that  which 
in  testing  beauty  identifies  it  with  the  pleasure 
which  it  occasions.  "  Beautiful"  and  "  pleasing" 
are  often  interchanged  ;  and  an  object  is  assumed 
to  be  beautiful  which  pleases.  But  while  it  is  true 
that  the  experience  of  the  beautiful  like  the  appre- 


2O  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

hension  of  truth  naturally  gives  pleasure,  yet  these 
are  sources  of  pleasure  other  than  the  sense  of 
beauty.  The  acquisition  of  truth,  as  just  intimated, 
is  pleasing ;  sensation  is  in  itself  a  pleasure.  As 
we  look  upon  the  rainbow  there  is  both  the  pleasure 
from  the  sight  of  its  form  and  of  its  brightness  and 
blended  hues,  and  also  the  pleasure  from  perceiving 
the  relations  of  the  bow  to  the  cloud  on  which  it 
rests  and  to  each  drop  of  water  which  refracts  and 
reflects  its  own  light  and  to  the  parts  of  the  bow 
itself  in  its  perfectly  circular  figures,  as  well  as  also 
to  the  arrangement  of  the  hues.  The  child  may  be 
delighted  simply  through  the  sensation  which  the 
visible  form  and  brightness  produces  in  him,  and 
the  philosopher  through  the  perception  of  scientific 
laws  which  he  reads  in  the  outer  and  inner  relations 
of  the  bow,  while  neither  of  them  shall  have  the 
slightest  emotion  of  pleasure  from  the  object  re- 
garded as  beautiful.  There  are  besides  sources  of 
moral  pleasure  in  the  object  which  are  entirely  dis- 
tinguishable from  the  proper  aesthetic  pleasure. 
The  bow  brought  hope  and  peace  to  those  that  had 
been  saved  from  the  general  deluge  ;  and  the  pleas- 
ure in  grateful  hope  and  peace  which  came  to  them 
as  they  looked  upon  it  may  very  probably  have 
absorbed  all  aesthetic  pleasure.  While  it  is  true, 
accordingly,  that  an  object  which  cannot  please 
cannot  be  beautiful,  it  is  true  besides  that  it  is  not 
necessarily  beautiful  because  it  pleases.  There  is 
a  physical  pleasure,  the  pleasure  of  sensation  ;  there 
is  an  intellectual  pleasure ;  there  is  a  moral  pleas- 
ure ;  and  besides  these  there  is  also  an  aesthetic 


BEAUTY    OBJECTIVE.  2  I 

pleasure.  This  last  species  of  pleasure  comes  from 
the  aesthetic  properties  of  the  object  and  cannot  be 
resolved  into  any  one  or  all  of  the  other  species  of 
pleasure  which  an  object  may  awaken  in  us. 

§  22.    On   the    other   hand   we    must 

The      immediate 

end  of   Beamy    guard   ourselves    against  the  error  of 

not  pleasure.  •»<•%• 

those  who,  like  Quatremere  de  Qumcy, 
teach  that  the  characteristic  end  of  form,  of 
beauty,  and  the  proper  aim  of  art,  is  pleasure. 
It  is  no  more  so  than  the  end  of  truth  is  pleasure. 
Form  gives  pleasure,  as  does  truth,  when  appre- 
hended. But  the  proper  end  of  form  is  to  effect 
communion  between  different  spirits — it  is  the 
condition  and  the  medium  of  such  communion. 
Proofs  of  object-  §  23-  The  proofs  of  the  objective  real- 

BeUtyf-i!fro£f  ity  of  beauty  are  first,  that  the  corn- 
common  sense.  r  •  /•  i 

mon  sense  of  men  uniformly  recog- 
nizes some  thing  inherent  in  the  object  which 
awakens  the  emotions  of  beauty.  It  never  ques- 
tions this  reality.  It  never  imagines  that  these 
emotions  come  from  a  train  of  associations,  and  that 
the  object  is  only  the  remote  occasion  of  the  emo- 
tions. It  laughs  at  the  notion  of  Lord  Jeffrey,  that 
a  man's  slippers  are  just  as  really  and  intrinsically 
beautiful  as  a  poem.  The  rainbow  it  recognizes  to 
be  beautiful  alike  at  the  first  observation  when  there 
can  be  little  or  no  possibility  of  any  associations 
and  at  the  second  and  any  subsequent  observations. 
If  the  pleasure  which  is  occasioned  comes  only 
from  its  being  associated  with  the  memory  of  some 
friend  in  whose  society  it  had  been  contemplated 
before,  the  common  sense  of  men  pronounces  that 
this  pleasure  is  not  proper  aesthetic  pleasure. 


22  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

§  24.  Secondly,  the  common  speech 
a.  Fromianguage.  of  men  recognizes  the  objective  reality 

of  beauty.  In  all  languages  of  culti- 
vated nations,  in  all  ages  alike,  this  reality  is  implied 
in  the  most  common  and  familiar  forms  of  expres- 
sion. Even  Lord  Jeffrey,  as  already  indicated,  can- 
not but  use  language  which  disproves  his  theory. 

§  25.  Thirdly,  this  objective  reality 
£aSati™rn  comes  attested  to  us  by  all  the  signs 

and  proofs  which  attend  the  presenta- 
tion to  us  of  any  immaterial  object  We  accept 
the  presentation  to  our  sight  of  a  living  man  mov- 
ing before  us  and  producing  effects  upon  our  feel- 
ings and  our  thoughts  as  well  as  upon  our  organs  of 
sight  as  proof  of  a  real  object  external  to  our- 
selves. We  may  question  the  reality  of  this  object 
as  reasonably  as  the  reality  of  beauty. 

§  26.  Fourthly,  universal  consciousness 
2d££do±£:  attests  the  reality  of  beauty.  We  are 

conscious  of  an  effect  upon  us,  not  of 
our  own  producing.  We  are  conscious  of  an  effect 
which  is  not  that  of  bodily  sensation,  nor  of  mere 
perception  nor  of  mere  pleasure  of  any  kind.  The 
analysis  of  our  experience  gives  us  unmistakably  a 
peculiarity  which  does  not  belong  to  these  other 
effects,  physical,  intellectual,  or  moral.  The  effect 
is  immediate  from  the  object.  It  is  not  intermedi- 
ate through  a  train  of  associations,  and  therefore 
is  not  to  be  ascribed  to  them,  but  to  the  original 
object  itself  which  produces  tne  effect  while  awak- 
ening, it  may  be,  divers  associations  in  connection 
with  the  proper  effect.  We  are  immediately  con- 


BEAU  TV    OBJECTIVE.  23 

scious,  it  is  true,  only  of  the  effect ;  but  we  are 
conscious  of  it  as  an  effect  not  of  our  own  produ- 
cing ;  as  not  arising  from  our  own  memories  or  as- 
sociations with  past  experiences.  The  effect  comes, 
we  are  conscious,  from  without  ourselves,  from  a 
power  external  and  so  foreign  to  us.  This  effect  in 
us,  which  we  call  the  experience  of  beauty,  could 
not  be  but  for  the  object  that  is  offered  to  our  view. 
It  must  be  therefore  from  that ;  and  in  that  object 
must  be  some  property  which  can  thus  affect  us — 
something  real. 

Most  correctly  does  Menzel  in  his  review  of  Ger- 
man aesthetic  literature  declare  in  the  light  of  its 
history:  "the  science  of  aesthetics  itself  is  nothing 
but  the  theory  of  objective  beauty  ;  that  is,  of  the 
beautiful  as  it  appears  in  external  objects."  V 


24  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    UNIVERSALITY    OF    BEAUTY. 

universality  of  §  27-  If,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  last 
a^rf££  chapter,  there  is  some  reality  which  is 
external  to  our  contemplation  and  the 
proper  object  of  that  contemplation  in  the  experi- 
ence of  beauty,  the  question  at  once  arises :  is  that 
objective  beauty  for  all  ?  Is  it  object  for  universal 


experience 


If  beauty  consists  only  in  a  train  of  associations, 
it  is  evident  that  whatever  may  be  the  character  of 
the  object  presented  to  the  mind,  however  beautiful 
to  most  observers,  it  cannot  be  beautiful  to  him 
who  has  not  a  train  of  associations  to  be  awakened 
by  it ;  to  him  with  whose  past  experience  it  is  not 
in  some  way  so  connected  as  to  awaken  pleasant 
memories.  Beauty,  according  to  this  theory,  can- 
not be  for  mind  as  mind  ;  but  only  for  such  minds 
as  have  had  a  special  history  related  to  the  object. 
§  28.  So,  too,  on  the  theory  that  the 
And  of  Pleasure,  beautiful  is  the  same  as  the  pleasing, 
that  whatever  is  pleasing  is  by  very  vir- 
tue of  its  being  pleasing,  beautiful,  beauty  cannot 
be  universal.  For  objects  that  are  pleasing  to  some 
are  displeasing  to  others.  We  ourselves  are  at  one 


THE   UNIVERSALITY    OF    BEAUTY.  25 

time  pleased  with  objects  that  at  another  are  posi- 
tively displeasing.  The  child  is  pleased  with  toys  ; 
the  man  puts  away  childish  things,  finding  no  longer 
satisfaction  in  them. 

§  29.  Still  further  on  the  theory  that 
And  of  utility.  beauty  consists  in  utility,  or  other  spe- 
cific relation,  beauty  cannot  be  univer- 
sal ;  for  where  this  relation  is  not  recognized  there 
can  be  no  beauty  ;  and  our  sense  of  beauty  is 
dependent  not  on  the  object  itself  but  on  that  some- 
thing else  to  which  it  is  related.  Whether  any 
individual  mind  has  been  brought  to  know  that 
related  object  is  a  matter  of  accident.  If  a  weed, 
otherwise  lacking  in  all  beauty,  becomes  beautiful 
simply  by  virtue  of  its  being  useful  for  food  or  in 
healing,  it  cannot  be  beautiful  to  us,  till  we  have 
learned  this  utility. 

Doctrine  of  uni-  §  3°.  But  if  beauty  consists,  as  we 
ITS'SSi!  have  seen'  in  form  as  a  revelation  of 
some  mode  or  act  of  mind  through  some 
medium,  then  it  must  be  alike  for  every  mind  that 
can  receive  such  revelation  through  such  a  medium. 
The  sense  of  beauty  must  be  independent  of  any 
such  accidents  as  associations  founded  in  past  ex- 
perience, of  any  casual  changes  in  the  condition  of 
our  feelings  that  capriciously  are  now  pleased,  then 
displeased  with  the  same  object,  and  of  any  recog- 
nition of  utility  or  other  relation  in  the  object. 
Beauty  must  be  for  all  minds  alike  that  are  capable 
of  apprehending  it.  Its  proper  effect  it  must  pro- 
duce alike  everywhere  and  by  necessity  wherever 
the  conditions  are  supplied. 


26  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

§  31.  This  doctrine  of  the  universality 
S-°facun.tradicted  of  beauty  implying  a  necessary  uni- 
formity of  effect  whenever  the  condi- 
tions are  supplied,  although  it  would  seem  to  be 
well  nigh  self-evidencing,  may  yet,  at  first  sight, 
seem  to  be  in  contradiction  to  our  common  experi- 
ence and  observation.  We  find,  thus,  that  the  same 
object  is  beautiful  to  one,  while  to  another  it  is, 
perhaps,  positively  hateful.  So,  too,  some  persons 
seem  wholly  insensible  to  beauty.  Yet  these  facts 
are  entirely  reconcilable  with  our  proposition.  They 
give,  indeed,  no  more  difficulty  here 
Analogy  of  than  we  encounter  in  other  kinds  of 

sound. 

experience.  We  assert,  thus,  that  sound 
is  universal — is  for  all.  Yet  all  do  not  hear.  Some 
are  absolutely  deaf.  Others  who  have  the  organ  of 
hearing  in  its  full  perfection  and  who  are,  moreover, 
in  the  proper  relation  to  the  origin  of  the  sound  so 
far  as  external  circumstances  are  concerned,  yet 
often  fail  to  hear.  The  clock  strikes  its  hours  :  but 
the  student  engrossed  in  absorbing  study,  the 
youth  in  the  excitements  of  pleasure,  the  anxious 
mother  striving  by  her  care  and  love  to  hold  back 
the  spirit  of  a  child  that  seems  struggling  to  de- 
part,— men  absorbed  deeply  in  thought,  in  enjoy- 
ment, in  care,  heed  it  not.  Sound  is  not  to  them. 
If  it  strike  upon  the  outward  ear,  it  reaches  not  the 
apprehending  spirit.  But  the  truth  remains  that 
sound  is  for  all  men  endowed  with  the  organ  of 
hearing,  when  the  outer  conditions  are  supplied. 

So  we  assert  that  truth  is  universal — 
or  truth.  necessarily  apprehended  by  every  mind 

placed  in  proper   relations   to  it.     But 


THE   UNIVERSALITY    OF    BEAUTY.  2/ 

the  truth  of  the  equality  of  the  angles  of  an  equi- 
lateral triangle  so  readily  apprehended  by  the 
geometrician  when  especially  the  figure  of  such  a 
triangle  is  before  his  eyes,  the  mass  of  men  fail  to 
apprehend.  Is  truth,  therefore,  not  universal  ?  Do 
we  conclude  from  this  that  it  is  not  necessarily  ap- 
prehended by  the  mind  in  suitable  relationship  to  it  ? 
Certainly  not.  Truth  present  to  mind  as  mind  is 
apprehended  by  it  necessarily  and  with  the  peculiar 
pleasure  that  attends  the  apprehension  of  truth. 
Apprehension  of  §  32.  Nor  do  we  feel  the  necessity  of 
rebliv^Tu?  modifying  the  proposition  that  truth  is 
for  all  minds — alike  to  be  apprehended 
with  the  proper  pleasure  of  such  apprehension,  in 
order  to  meet  the  fact  that  there  is  a  difference  in 
truths  as  it  respects  their  capability  of  being  appre- 
hended. The  trained  mind  at  once  apprehends  the 
equi-angularity  of  an  equilateral  triangle  exhibited 
in  diagram  before  it,  or  even  without  such  diagram ; 
the  infant  mind  apprehends  no  such  truth  in  a 
diagram  ever  so  perfectly  constructed  and  distinctly 
observed  by  the  outward  eye.  So  with  beauty. 
To  apprehend  some  forms  of  beauty,  a  developed 
capacity  of  apprehension  may  be  requisite.  Still, 
beauty,  like  truth,  is  for  the  mind  as  mind.  The 
more  mind,  the  greater  mental  capacity  there  is, 
the  fuller  will  be  the  apprehension  as  well  of  truth 
as  of  beauty.  The  germ  of  the  capacity  in  each  of 
these  departments  of  exertion  is  in  every  mind.  At 
least,  the  human  mind  wants  an  essential  property, 
if  it  lack  either  capacity  ;  it  is  but  a  monstrosity  of 
mind.  That  ever  such  a  monstrosity  existed  is  with- 


2§  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

out  proof.  Truth  and  beauty,  we  conclude  then,  are 
alike  for  mind  as  mind  ;  possible  to  be  apprehended 
by  every  mind,  necessarily  apprehended  by  every 
mind  when  present  to  it,  and  ever  apprehended  by 
a  legitimate  necessary  satisfaction  or  pleasure. 

§  33.  If  this  doctrine  of  the  universal- 
SseoT7asPte.nci"  ity  of  beauty  be  correct,  then  there 

must  be  universal  or  necessary  princi- 
ples of  taste.  There  must  be  a  criterion  of  beauty. 
In  other  words  it  must  always  be  possible  to  deter- 
mine whether  any  given  object,  a  rainbow  or  a 
landscape,  a  painting  or  a  poem,  any  product  of 
nature  or  any  work  of  art  is  beautiful  or  not ;  as  it 
must  be  possible  to  indicate  whether  there  be  in  it 
that  which  produces  the  effect  of  beauty  on  mind  as 
mind.  It  must  be  possible  always  to  indicate  in 
what  respects  it  must  be  regarded  as  beautiful  and 
in  what,  not ;  as  that  element  in  it  which  makes  it 
beautiful  can  if  present  be  shown  by  its  like  effect 
on  every  mind.  There  is  possible,  consequently,  a 
science  of  taste,  that  shall  unfold  the  principles 
which  preside  over  the  creation  of  form,  that  is  over 
the  revelation  of  idea,  and  over  its  interpretation ; 
that  shall  show  on  universal  grounds  how  idea  is  to 
be  revealed  and  how  it  is  to  be  apprehended  by  the 
mind  to  which  it  is  revealed.  There  is  such  a  thing 
as  sound  taste,  as  valid  criticism  ;  and  these  are 
grounded  on  the  universality  of  beauty. 

§  34.    The  popular  notion  of  a  diver- 

Reconcilablewith      °   ^ 

a  diversity  of   sity  in  tastes  which  has  passed  into  a 

tastes.  i.       ... 

familiar  adage,  need  not  occasion  any 
serious  difficulty  in  accepting  this  doctrine.  In  the 


THE   UNIVERSALITY    OF    BEAUTY.  2Q 

first  place,  it  will  be  necessary  to  determine  pre- 
cisely in  what  sense  the  term  taste  is  used,  for  it 
has  a  diversity  of  meanings.  Among  these  mean- 
ings two  are  to  be  particularly  noted  here — one 
denoting  a  sensibility  to  impression  or  the  awaken- 
ing of  that  sensibility  ;  the  other,  the  judgment 
which  acts  on  that  impression.  When  it  is  said 
that  a  man  has  a  taste  for  the  beautiful,  it  is  meant 
that  he  has  a  lively  susceptibility  for  it,  and  the 
term  is  used  in  the  first  of  these  two  meanings. 
When  it  is  said  that  he  has  a  good  taste  in  objects 
of  beauty,  it  is  meant  that  he  judges  readily  and 
accurately  upon  objects  that  awaken  that  suscepti- 
bility— that  he  refers  the  impression  to  that  element 
in  the  object  which  actually  produces  it.  It  is  evi- 
dent that  one  mind  may  be  very  susceptible  to  im- 
pression from  a  landscape  or  a  painting  without 
being  able  to  point  out  at  once  what  are  the  partic- 
ular elements  in  it  which  impress  his  susceptibility, 
and  may  be  a  very  poor  judge  ;  while  another  mind, 
less  susceptible  may  be  a  very  accurate  judge ; 
inasmuch  as  he  may  be  able  to.  point  out  in  the 
complex  object  precisely  what  it  is  that  makes  it 
beautiful 

In  the  next  place,  in  the  application  of  the  adage 
the  same  confusion  of  the  beautiful  with  the  pleas- 
ing that  has  been  before  indicated,  is  often  to  be 
remarked.  Thus  Lord  Jeffrey  in  maintaining  "that 
it  is  not  only  quite  true  that  there  is  no  room 
for  disputing  about  tastes,  but  that  all  tastes  are 
equally  just  and  correct,  in  so  far  as  each  individual 
speaks  only  of  his  own  emotions,"  grounds  his 


3O  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

opinion  on  the  fact  that  inasmuch  as  an  object  gives 
him  pleasure,  it  is  beautiful.  In  the  sense  that  all 
things  do  not  please  alike,  the  adage  holds  true. 

Still  further,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  the 
same  complex  object  may  reveal  in  many  different 
ways  or  through  many  different  elements.  One 
mind  may  by  effect  of  peculiar  disposition  or  habit 
more  readily  recognize  one  of  these  ways  or  ele- 
ments; another  mind  more  readily  fastens  upon 
another.  One  mind  may  not  find  in  an  object  that 
which  another  may  at  once  discern.  Thus  it  is 
said  of  a  celebrated  mathematician  that  he  could 
never  find  any  thing  sublime  in  the  Paradise  Lost ; 
but  "he  could  never  read  the  queries  at  the  end  of 
Newton's  Optics  without  feeling  his  hair  stand  on 
end  and  his  blood  run  cold."  There  is  no  object 
presented  to  us  which  we  may  not  view  in  one  or 
another  of  manifold  aspects.  In  contemplating  the 
rainbow,  the  regularity  of  the  curve  may  absorb 
the  mind  of  the  mathematician,  while  its  relation  to 
the  cloud  and  to  the  sun  may  engage  that  of  the 
philosopher,  to  the  exclusion  from  the  conscious- 
ness in  both  observers  of  the  sentiment  of  beauty, 
which  sentiment  on  the  contrary  may  wholly  fill  the 
mind  of  a  third  beholder. 

That  there  should  be  diversity  of  tastes  and  that 
even  in  the  contemplation  of  the  same  object 
different  beholders  may  see  different  elements  of 
beauty,  and  some  have  no  sense  of  beauty  whatever 
awakened  by  it,  can  thus  be  satisfactorily  accounted 
for  in  entire  consistency  with  the  doctrine  that 
beauty  as  such  is  for  all  human  minds  as  such ;  and 


THE   UNIVERSALITY    OF    BEAUTY.  3! 

consequently  that  there  are  fixed  determinable  prin- 
ciples of  taste  and  grounds  for  a  true  science  of 
criticism.  It  is  correctly  observed  by  Jouffroy  that 
every  object  and  every  event  is  the  sign  of  an  idea. 
Every  object  is  consequently  in  some  respect 
beautiful,  and  may  be  recognized  as  such  if  re- 
garded in  that  respect ;  while  if  that  respect  be 
disregarded  it  may  be  ugly.  An  object  may  have 
manifold  elements  of  expression,  some  of  which 
may  be  in  beauty,  and  others  not.  According  as  the 
contemplation  fastens  upon  one  or  the  other  class, 
the  object  as  a  whole  will  be  held  to  be  beautiful  or 
not. 


32  NATURE   OF  BEAUTY. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE   RELATIVENESS    OF   BEAUTY. 

§  35.  It  is  remarkable  how  universally 
^dsofrektive"  the  relativeness  there  is  in  beauty  has 
been  recognized  and  how  vitally  it  has 
seemed  to  shape  the  various  theories  that  have  been 
given  of  its  nature.  From  Plato  down  we  find 
everywhere  the  influence  of  this  recognized  attribute 
in  shaping  theory.  We  find  it,  indeed,  in  widely 
diversified  ways,  as  relativeness  may  exist  in  vari- 
ous modes.  We  may  distinguish  thus  a  relative- 
ness  in  degree  and  a  relativeness  in  kind. 

The  relativeness  in  degree,  Plato,  in 
ofdegree.  his  dialogue  entitled  the  Hippias  Ma- 

jor, seems  to  have  desired  to  exhibit  in 
beauty,  when  he  represents  the  face  of  a  beautiful 
maiden  regarded  by  itself  as  undeniably  a  true  ob- 
ject of  beauty  ;  but  as  becoming  absolutely  ugly 
when  coming  into  the  presence  of  angelic  or  divine 
beauty.  So,  as  he  proceeds  to  instance,  the  maiden- 
face,  a  horse,  a  harp,  a  kitchen-pot,  may  be  unques- 
tionably beautiful  in  themselves,  but  become  ugly 
in  presence  of  a  higher  beauty. 

This  kind  of  relativeness  consisting  only  in  de- 
gree, we  are  prepared  by  what  has  been  already 
seen,  to  recognize  as  belonging  to  beauty.  Beauty 


THE  RELATIVENESS  OF  BEAUTY.        33 

is  of  a  higher  or  lower  degree,  according  as  the  idea 
is  more  or  less  perfect  or  more  or  less  noble,  the  mat- 
ter more  or  less  suitable,  the  embodiment  more  or 
less  exact  and  complete.  In  this  sense,  as  it  respects 
degree,  an  object  of  lower  beauty  may  be  said  to  be 
relatively  ugly  in  comparison  with  one  of  a  higher 
degree.  Beauty  in  this  sense  is  relative.  But  this 
kind  of  relativeness  is  to  be  carefully  discriminated 
from  that  which  lies  in  the  intrinsic  nature  of 
beauty. 

§  36.  Relativeness  in  kind  may  be  ex- 
of  kind.  ternal  or  internal.  It  may  exist  exter- 

nally   between    the    object    and    the 
contemplating  mind,  or  internally  between  the  sev- 
eral elements  that  constitute  it  as  a  complex  whole. 
We  are  prepared  by  what  has  been 
External.  considered  to  recognize  a  kind  of  rela- 

tiveness of  the  first  kind.  It  is  true 
that  beauty  can  be  apprehended  only  by  an  energy 
that  can  grasp  ideas  revealed  in  matter.  To  the 
contemplating  mind  beauty  is  not  so  far  as  it  is 
not  or  cannot  be  apprehended ;  just  as  an  object  ot 
sight  is  to  the  blind  as  if  it  were  not ;  as  music  of 
the  richest  melody  is  as  if  it  were  not  to  the  deaf. 
Still  farther,  as  before  intimated,  the  higher  beauty 
demands  a  higher,  riper  mental  energy  ;  so  that,  it 
may  be,  a  real  beauty  shall  be  hid  from  the  less 
cultivated  that  is  manifest  to  the  maturer  and  more 
vigorous  capacity.  If  we  add  to  this  the  further 
consideration  that  by  its  power  of  abstraction  the 
mind  may  confine  its  view  to  any  one  or  more  of 
the  several  elements  of  a  complex  object  to  the  ex- 


34  NATURE   OF   BEAUTY, 

elusion  of  the  others,  we  shall  be  ready  to  admit 
that  this  attribute  of  relativeness  between  the  view- 
ing subject  and  the  contemplated  object  of  beauty 
may  have  a  large  place  in  the  actual  experience  of 
beauty. 

From  the  observation  of  the  extent  of  this  attri- 
bute of  external  relativeness  and,  as  it  would  seem, 
without  a  careful  determination  of  its  true  nature, 
the  Scotch  theories  of  beauty  have  run  off  into 
utter  skepticism  as  to  the  objective  reality  of  beauty. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  whole  skeptical 
theory  in  regard  to  the  objective  reality  of  beauty 
has  no  other  foundation  than  the  mistaken  appre^ 
hension  of  the  nature  of  the  relativeness  which  there 
is  in  the  contemplation  of  beauty. 

§  37.  There  is  still  another  kind  ol 
internal.  relativeness  to  be  recognized  in  beauty 

— an  internal  relativeness  existing  be- 
tween the  several  elements  in  its  complex  nature. 
Of  the  reality,  the  character,  and  the  extent  of  this 
kind  of  relativeness,  we  have  taken  already  a  suffi- 
ciently distinct  view  in  the  exposition  of  the  nature 
of  beauty  as  idea  revealed  in  form.  It  is  only  need- 
ful here  to  expose  a  remarkable  error  into  which 
philosophers  have  fallen  in  misconceiving  its  true 
nature.  Recognizing  an  internal  relativeness  in 
the  elements  of  beauty,  they  have  admitted  only  a 
mere  discursive  relationship  between  the  idea  and 
the  outer  form,  shutting  out  from  their  view  entirely 
that  vital  union  which  is  implied  in  a  revelation 
and  embodiment.  Thus  Zimmerman,  in  comment- 
ing on  Plato's  expositions  of  the  experience  of 


THE  RELATIVENESS  OF  BEAUTY.        35 

beauty  as  composite  in  its  nature,  leaps  at  once  to 
the  conclusion  that,  as  composite,  beauty  must  be 
object  of  the  faculty  oi  comparison,  the  judging  in- 
telligence alone.  The  discursive  faculty  compares 
the  idea  and  the  matter,  and  in  this  comparison  lies 
the  true  essence  and  characteristic  of  the  experience 
of  beauty.  So  he  concludes,  "  the  pleasure  in  the 
beautiful  rests  on  a  comparison  of  different  things 
with  one  another,  accordingly  on  a  judgment." 

In  the  same  way  Kant,  and  in  this  he  is  followed 
by  the  German  philosophers  generally,*  as  well  as  by 
Sir  William  Hamilton,  makes  beauty  mere  object  of 
the  understanding,  or  of  that  faculty  whose  function  is 
to  think  the  particular  under  the  universal.  Only, 
therefore,  in  the  mere  discursive  relation,  as  that  in 
which  a  plurality  of  objects  may  be  thought  as  one, 
does  this  theory  recognize  the  elements  of  beauty  ; 
a  mere  relation  of  logical  dependence.  But  this  is 
by  no  means  the  true  internal  relation  in  which  the 
elements  that  constitute  the  beauty  there  is  in  an 
object  stand  to  each  other.  To  admit  this  would 
be  to  admit  that  the  experience  of  the  beautiful  is 
indistinguishable  from  the  experience  of  the  true  or 
the  real.  The  unity  in  an  object  of  the  discursive 
faculty  is  a  unity  of  the  part  with  its  whole ;  the 
unity  in  an  object  of  beauty  is  a  revelation,  not  a 
mere  attribution,  uniting  subject  with  attribute. 


*  "The  reference,"  says  Zimmerman,  "of  the  beautiful  to  a  har- 
monious activity  of  the  understanding  and  the  imagination,  the 
exposition  of  the  beautiful  from  its  subjective  origin,  not  from  its 
objective  laws,  is  the  fundamental  principle  of  all  aesthetics  after 
Kant,  with  exception  of  Herbart" 


36  NATURE   OF   BEAUTY. 

There  are  other  relations  besides  that  of  parts  to 
their  respective  wholes  ;  and  it  is  only  this  last  that 
the  understanding  regards.  Altogether  too  loosely 
and  too  ambitiously  is  the  Comparative  Faculty 
styled  the  Faculty  of  Relations,  if  simply  because 
the  revelation  of  soul  in  body,  of  idea  in  form,  is  a 
relation,  we  must  infer  that  beauty  is  alone  appre- 
hensible by  it.  On  the  other  hand,  when  its  func- 
tion and  its  sphere  are  accurately  determined,  its 
sole  prerogative  is  found  to  be  to  identify — to  de- 
tect and  apprehend  the  sameness,  total  or  partial, 
the  total  or  partial  unity  of  a  plurality  of  objects  or 
attributes  ;  and  its  domain  is  only  over  what  can 
be  thought  as  one  among  many.  Revelation  of 
soul  in  body,  of  idea  in  matter,  is  not  mere  identifi- 
cation of  soul  and  body,  of  idea  and  matter  as  one. 
More  than  this,  the  contemplating  mind  recognizes 
here  a  vitalizing  element  altogether  foreign  to  mere 
soul  or  to  mere  body  ;  to  mere  idea  or  to  mere 
matter,  and  more  than  any  mere  aggregation  of  them. 
The  union  is  not  logical,  but  organic. 


THE    IMAGINATION.  37 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    IMAGINATION. 

§  38.  The  fact  that  Beauty  is  object- 
r<££  ively  real  implies  that  there  is  some- 
thing in  the  human  mind  which 
answers  to  it  as  such  object.  This  department  of 
mind  may,  in  best  accordance  with  the  use  of  lan- 
guage in  our  most  recent  literature,  be  denomi- 
nated the  Imagination.  Form  as  object  and  Imagi- 
nation as  subject,  are  correlatives.  The  one  is  for 
the  other  and  each  implies  the  other. 

But  Imagination  may  be  viewed  in  a 
AcdSve!Te  and  double  aspect ;  as  passive  or  recipient 
of  form ;  or  as  active,  creative  of 
form.  Activity  and  passivity,  as  Sir  William  Ham- 
ilton has  well  observed,  are  always  conjoined.  "  In 
every  mental  modification  active  and  passive  are 
the  two  necessary  elements  or  factors  of  which  it  is 
composed."  By  our  power  of  abstraction  we  may 
attend  to  the  one  side  or  to  the  other  side  of  any 
mental  modification,  to  the  partial  or  entire  exclu- 
sion of  the  other  from  our  view  ;  and  in  this  way  we 
may  characterize  the  same  modification  as  either 
passive  or  active.  It  is  so  with  knowledge  or 
intelligence.  In  all  perception  of  physical  objects 
there  is  necessarily  sensation.  Perception  is  the 


38  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

active  side,  sensation  the  passive  side  of  the  same 
mental  modification. 

The  Imagination  is  accordingly  to  be 
Defined.  viewed  both  as  active  and  as  passive. 

It  may  be  defined  the  faculty  of  form, 
or  the  capacity  of  form  ;  according  as,  for  the  pur- 
poses of  the  definition,  it  is  viewed  as  active  or  cre- 
ative, or  as  passive  or  receptive. 

§  39.  The  sphere  of  the  Imagination 
wi°thBeeautyate  is  thus  precisely  the  sphere  of  the 
Beautiful,  taken  in  its  largest  sense 
The  Beautiful  is  the  proper  object  for  the  Imagina- 
tion. It  is  ever  produced  by  the  Imagination  as 
the  Faculty  of  Form  ;  it  is  ever  apprehended  by  the 
Imagination  as  the  Capacity  of  Form.  The  obser- 
vation of  the  elder  Mendelssohn  is  as  just  as  it  is 
profound,  that  beauty — that  is,  objective  beauty — 
or  perfect  form  is  ever  the  companion  of  sensibility. 
§  40.  There  are  other  designations 
other  names.  of  this  department  of  mind  in  cur- 
rent use,  suggested  by  its  different 
aspects  or  modifications.  Such  are  the  Contempla- 
tive Faculty,  the  ^Esthetic  Faculty,  and  the  Theo- 
retic Faculty,  which  regard  Beauty  or  Form  as 
object  presented  to  the  mind,  and  the  mind  as  active 
in  the  contemplation ;  Internal  Sense,  ./Esthetic 
Sense,  Artistic  Sense,  likewise  ^Esthetic  Taste, 
suggested  by  the  passivity  of  the  mind  in  this  ex- 
perience of  Beauty ;  Phantasy  and  in  the  abbrevi- 
ated form  of  the  word  Fancy,  etymologically  point- 
ing to  the  essential  nature  of  Beauty,  as  form  or 
appearance,  but  in  use  rather  applied  somewhat 


THE    IMAGINATION.  39 

capriciously  to  special  modifications  of  the  Imagi- 
nation ;  the  Creative  Faculty,  the  Poetic  Faculty, 
looking  to  the  production  of  form  as  beauty ;  and 
the  Artistic  Sense  and  Artistic  Faculty,  limiting  to 
a  specific  use  and  meaning. 

§  41.  It  will  be  of  service  to  fix  the 
memli  &T«i°t££  precise  place  and  relation  of  the  Imag- 
ination as  thus  defined  among  the 
faculties  and  capacities  of  the  mind.  In  doing  this 
the  defects  or  errors  in  certain  theories  of  Beauty 
will  come  under  our  consideration. 

Imagination,  then,  and  Form  being  correlatives, 
related  to  each  other  as  subject  and  object,  and 
occupying  precisely  the  same  sphere,  it  is  plain  that 
as  the  Imagination  is  not  the  same  as  physical  sen- 
sation, so  the  beautiful  is  not  object  merely  for  the 
bodily  sense.  This  is  the  theory  of 
Theory  of  Burke.  Sir  Edmund  Burke  in  his  classic  essay 
on  the  Sublime  and  the  Beautiful. 
Beauty,  he  maintains,  "  is  no  creature  of  our  reason," 
but  "  is  for  the  greater  part  some  quality  in  bodies 
acting  mechanically  upon  the  human  mind  by  the 
intervention  of  the  senses ;"  "the  qualities  of 
beauty  are  merely  sensible  qualities  ;"  and  so  he 
concludes  that "  beauty  acts  by  relaxing  the  solids  of 
the  whole  system."  The  Sublime,  in  like  manner, 
he  finds  to  have  its  source  in  whatever  produces  an 
extraordinary  "tension  of  the  nerves."  According 
to  this  theory  the  sublime  and  the  beautiful  reach 
the  mind  only  so  far  as  they  contract  or  relax  the 
nerves,  and  are  consequently  sole  objects  for  the 
Sense,  precisely  as  are  perfumes  and  flavors  of 


4O  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

bodies,  objects  only  for  the  senses  of  smell  and 
taste.  The  fatal  defect  in  the  whole  theory  is  that 
it  exalts  a  mere  accidental  concomitant  in  the  ex- 
perience of  beauty  to  an  essential  element ;  indeed, 
makes  this  accident  the  essential  element.  That 
in  the  experience  of  the  Sublime  the  animal  nerves 
are  sometimes  tensely  stretched,  and  that  in  the 
experience  of  beauty  they  are  sometimes  relaxed, 
is  doubtless  true.  That  it  is  not  universally  and 
necessarily  so,  hardly  demands  formal  argumenta- 
tion. Besides,  in  many  cases,  certainly  the  tension 
or  the  relaxation  is  the  effect  of  the  mental  experi- 
ence or  contemplation,  not  the  cause  or  object  of  it. 
§  42.  Again,  the  aesthetic  Imagination 
p^tio™  "^  is  not  E  proper  fziculty  of  the  Intelli- 
gence ;  it  is  not  a  cognitive  power. 
Accordingly,  Beauty  is  not  the  immediate  object  of 
the  Intelligence ;  the  proper  experience  of  the 
beautiful  is  not  a  mode  of  knowledge,  is  not  a 
cognition. 

It  is  not  a  proper  perception  ;  for  this  is  but  the 
active  side  of  that  mental  state  of  which  Sensation 
is  the  passive  side.  As  the  passive  imagination  is 
not  Sensation,  so  the  active  imagination  is  not  per- 
ception. 

§  43.  Nor  yet  is  the  Imagination  a 
Nor  intuition.  kind  of  intuition.  Intuitions,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  perceptions  in  the 
literature  of  English  psychology,  have  for  their  ob- 
ject ideas  not  presented  to  the  mind  through  the 
bodily  senses  ;  although  some  authors  also  exclude 
the  phenomena  of  self-consciousness,  and  limit  the 


THE    IMAGINATION.  4! 

application  of  the  term  intuitions  to  such  ideas  as 
identity,  quantity,  substance,  cause,  and  the  like. 
But  intuitions  like  perceptions  are  cognitions,  forms 
of  the  intelligence.  Imagination  is  not  an  intuition. 
Its  object,  form,  is  not  as  form,  as  the  beautiful,  for 
the  intelligence.  The  intelligence  may  indeed  lay 
hold  of  it  for  itself;  may  perceive  the  rainbow  as 
the  effect  of  reflection  and  refraction,  as  in  perfect 
circular  figure  ;  may  study  it  as  a  matter  of  science. 
But  in  this  exercise  of  the  intelligence  there  is 
necessarily  no  proper  experience  of  the  bow  simply 
as  a  thing  of  beauty. 

§  44.  Nor,  once  more,  is  the  imagina- 
Nor  judgment  tion  a  form  of  the  understanding  or 

faculty  of  comparison  ;  nor  its  exercise 
a  proper  thought.  And  the  beautiful  is  not  proper 
object  of  the  understanding.  Such,  as  already 
stated,  is  the  theory  of  Kant  and  of  Sir  William 
Hamilton,  as  also  of  more  recent  German  writers 
on  aesthetics.  "A  thing  beautiful,"  says  Hamilton, 
"  is  one  whose  form  occupies  the  imagination  and 
understanding  in  a  free  and  full,  and  consequently 
in  an  agreeable  activity."  But  with  Hamilton  the 
imagination  is  only  the  representative  or  repro- 
ductive power  of  the  mind  by  which  it  calls  up  past 
experiences  and  recombines  them  ;  and  the  function 
of  the  understanding  is  to  bring  the  manifold  given 
to  it  into  a  unity.  When  it  can  perform  this  func- 
tion easily  and  perfectly,  "  the  object,"  he  says,  "  is 
judged  beautiful  or  pleasing."  But  if  this  theory 
were  correct,  then  wherever  the  greatest  variety  is 
combined  in  the  most  perfect  unity,  there  should 


42  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

be  the  highest  beauty.  A  perfect  generalization 
ought  to  rank  thus  in  the  highest  sphere  of  beauty  j 
and  to  gratify  our  love  of  the  beautiful  in  the  most 
exalted  degree,  we  must  leave  the  domains  of  nature 
and  art  and  range  in  the  fields  of  abstract  science. 

Moreover,  this  theory  mistakes  the  order  and 
relationship  in  the  complex  experience  of  a  beauti- 
ful object.  The  understanding  acts  only  upon  what 
is  given  to  it ;  only  upon  what  is  already  in  the 
consciousness.  Although  it  is  true  that  it  perhaps 
always  attends  upon  the  apprehension  of  the  beau- 
tiful ; — although  in  contemplating  the  bow,  besides 
j  udging  of  the  order  of  the  blending  hues  and  of 
the  circular  figure,  we  also  may  judge  that  it  is 
beautiful  and  so  exercise  a  proper  taste-judgment 
in  respect  to  it,  yet  this  taste-judgment  follows  in 
order  of  nature  upon  the  imagination.  The  proper 
sense  of  the  beautiful  is  thus  prior  to  the  exercise 
of  the  understanding  and  so  different  from  it  and 
independent  of  it ;  for  clearly  we  cannot  judge  an 
object  to  be  beautiful  until  we  have  felt  its  beauty, 
as  we  cannot  pronounce  an  orange  to  be  sweet  until 
we  have  tasted  its  sweetness.  This  theory  over- 
looks the  very  fundamental  law  of  the  judgment, 
that  it  acts  only  upon  what  is  already  in  the  con- 
sciousness ;  that  the  subject  and  the  attribute  which 
it  is  its  function  to  unite  must  be  already  in  the 
mind  before  there  can  be  any  exercise  of  this  its 
sole  function.  It  must  ever  have  as  the  prime  con- 
dition of  its  action  a  datum  consisting  of  an  object 
and  some  attribute.  In  the  case  of  a  taste-judg- 
ment, this  datum  is  the  object  and  its  attribute- 
beautiful. 


THE    IMAGINATION.  43 

Instead,  therefore,  of  resolving  the  imagination 
into  a  judgment,  into  a  comparison,  into  any  mental 
act  uniting  the  manifold  into  a  unity,  every  judg- 
ment in  matters  of  beauty  presupposes  the  imagin- 
ation as  the  faculty  or  capacity  of  form.  The 
taste-judgment  then  proceeds  to  affirm  respecting 
this  form,  in  respect  to  all  the  manifold  attributes 
which  it  may  recognize  in  it,  as  well  those  which 
respect  its  interior  as  its  elements,  and  the  divers 
relations  of  these  elements  to  one  another,  and  its 
perfectness  and  also  its  exterior  relations  to  time, 
place,  contemplating  mind,  and  the  like. 

In  all  the  gradations  of  the  consciousness  in  the 
contemplation,  the  judgment  ever  waits  on  the  con- 
sciousness and  acts  ever  only  in  immediate  reference 
to  that.  When  in  the  perception  the  idea  that  is 
revealed  in  it  is  apprehended,  the  judgment  affirms 
the  reality  of  the  apprehension,  and  so  the  reality 
of  the  idea  revealed  ;  and  in  the  same  way  affirms 
the  revelation.  If  the  perfectness  of  the  revelation 
passes  into  distinct  consciousness,  it  affirms  in 
reference  to  that — it  affirms  that  the  revelation  is 
perfect.  The  whole  complex  process  of  aesthetic 
criticism  is  but  a  series  of  judgments  on  the  several 
parts  of  the  whole  revelation  of  the  idea  in  its 
form, — first,  the  conformity  to  an  ideal  of  the  idea 
revealed  ;  secondly,  the  form  in  which  it  is  re- 
vealed ;  and  thirdly,  the  revelation  itself:  or  on 
more  particular  points  comprehended  severally  In 
these,  as  those  parts  are  already  presented  in  the 
consciousness. 
The  judgment,  thus,  is  not  the  ground  of  the  ex- 


44  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

perience  of  beauty, — we  do  not  first  compare  and 
judge,  and  then  apprehend  the  beautiful.  Beauty 
is  not  reasoned  out  by  a  process  of  the  discursive 
or  comparative  faculty.  The  order  is  :  we  first  ap- 
prehend beauty  ;  and  then,  in  that  act  of  conscious- 
ness, we  judge  in  relation  to  it ;  the  judgment  being 
grounded  on  the  consciousness  and  pertaining  im- 
mediately to  that. 

If  the  question  be  put :  Do  we  not  then  judge 
immediately  of  beautiful  objects  ?  it  may  be  replied 
that,  in  the  first  place,  we  judge  certainly  in  regard 
to  such  objects  only  as  we  apprehend  them.  Our 
fallible  natures  may  err  in  their  apprehension  and 
so  far  may  involve  us  in  erroneous  judgments.  No 
judgment  of  ours  can  be  absolute  in  regard  to  the 
nature  of  objects  external  to  us.  We  judge  them 
only  as  we  apprehend  them  ;  so  that  our  judgment 
really  rests  upon  that ;  has  that — the  apprehension 
— for  its  object,  not  the  real  qualities  of  the  objects 
concerning  which  we  judge. 

The  imagination,  consequently,  is  not  properly  a 
form  of  the  intelligence.  Psychologists  have,  in- 
deed, treated  it  as  belonging  within  that  depart- 
ment as  they  have  also  Sensation  ;  but  they  have 
probably  so  treated  both  only  because  they  are  con- 
ditions of  intelligence,  sensation  being  the  condi- 
tion of  a  perception,  the  affection  of  the  imagina- 
tion being  the  condition  of  a  taste-judgment. 

§  45.   The   place   of   the   imagination 
Relation  to  Form,    among  the  phenomena  of  mind  and 

its  proper  character  may  best  be  repre- 
sented perhaps  in  its  relation  to  form.     It  is,  as  we 


THE    IMAGINATION.  45 

have  seen,  the  capacity  and  also  the  faculty  of  form. 
It  apprehends  form  and  it  creates  form.  As  the 
mind  is  always  really  active  even  when  more  promi 
nently  viewed  as  passive,  as  its  activity  and  its  pas- 
sivity both  are  engaged  in  every  mental  state  or 
act,  it  follows,  that  even  when  it  apprehends  form 
passively,  its  active  nature  responds  to  this  passive 
affection  and  re-creates  for  itself  the  form  which  it 
receives  in  more  or  less  prominent  extent.  The 
musician  thus  reconstructs  the  forms  of  sound,  its 
melodies  and  its  harmonies,  while  he  hears  them  ; 
the  painter  in  the  same  way  pictures  in  his  own 
consciousness  the  figures,  the  groups,  the  colorings 
of  the  paintings  which  he  studies.  So  too  in  creat- 
ing, in  producing  music,  in  designing  paintings,  the 
artist  holds  up  the  forms  he  constructs  before  his 
own  contemplation  and  is  passively  affected  by 
them.  A  great  part  of  the  enthusiasm  with  which 
his  work  is  inspired  comes  from  this  passive  affec- 
tion from  the  forms  his  active  genius  creates.  The 
imagination  then  is  precisely  defined  as  that  depart- 
ment of  the  human  mind  whose  object  is  form,  and 
form  as  that  attribute  through  which  mind  com- 
municates with  mind.  It  is  the  line  or  surface  of 
contact  between  the  mind  expressing  and  the  mind 
apprehending. 

As  will  be  more  fully  shown  in  a  subsequent 
chapter  which  treats  of  the  matter  in  form,  the 
medium  through  which  form  reaches  the  mind  may 
be  the  bodily  sense — sensation — or  the  sensibility  of 
the  mind  which  receives  only  supersensible  ideas. 
As  form  includes  both  idea  revealed  and  matter  in 


46  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

which  it  is  revealed,  we  have  diversities  of  form 
characterized  by  the  specific  kind  of  matter  as  also 
by  the  specific  character  of  the  idea. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

AESTHETIC       SCIENCE. 

§  46.    From  the  exposition    given    in 

Esthetic*  coordi-      °,  _    , 

nate  with  Logic    the  preceding  chapters  of  the  essential 

und  Ethics. 

nature  of  beauty  it  will  readily  be  pre- 
sumed that  it  may  properly  be  made  the  subject- 
matter  of  a  special  science.  Indeed  it  would  be 
easy  to  show  that  the  science  of  beauty  is  coordi- 
nate with  the  sciences  of  the  True  and  the  Good, — 
with  Logic  and  Ethics ;  and,  Psychology  being  re- 
garded as  introductory,  with  them  makes  up  the 
three  departments  of  the  science  of  the  human 
mind.  As  coordinate  with  them  and  complemen- 
tary of  the  general  philosophy  of  the  mind,  it  re- 
ciprocally sheds  light  upon  them  and  receives  light 
from  them  ;  shapes  and  colors  them  and  is  shaped 
and  colored  by  them. 


.ESTHETIC    SCIENCE.  47 

§  47.  Beauty  has  been  shown  to  be 
matter.  S"mmc  objective  and  real  ;  to  be  an  attribute 

of  objects  existing  externally  to  us- 
This  attribute  we  have  found  to  embrace  several 
constituents  or  elements  ;  as  those  of  matter,  idea, 
and  idea  in  form,  precisely  as  we  find  that  the  con- 
ception of  the  human  involves  the  three  elements 
of  body,  soul,  and  soul  in  body.  As  man  is  not 
mere  body,  nor  mere  soul,  but  a  vital  union  of  soul 
and  body  which  vital  union  constitutes  the  essence 
of  what  is  properly  human,  so  beauty  is  not  mere 
matter,  as  Burke's  doctrine  logically  implies,  nor 
mere  idea,  as  Shaftesbury's  writings  seem  to  sup- 
pose, but  idea  embodied  in  matter ; — idea  in  vital 
relation  to  matter,  having  its  more  essential  and 
characteristic  nature  seated  in  this  union.  It  is  the 
same  with  truth :  a  truth  is  not  mere  subject,  nor 
mere  predicate  ;  but  the  agreement  of  the  predicate 
with  the  subject  in  the  vital  form  of  the  proposi- 
tion which  unites  the  two.  There  can  be  no  truth 
without  a  subject ;  none  without  a  predicate  or 
attribute  :  yet  the  most  essential  and  characteristic 
nature  of  truth  is  seated  in  the  vital  union  between 
the  two,  which  union  constitutes  the  proposition  as 
such. 

Science  can  make  this  analysis  of  the  beautiful ; 
can  recognize  these  three  elements  in  their  several 
relations  to  one  another  ;  can  in  reference  to  them 
distribute  the  different  kinds  of  beauty  presented 
to  the  human  mind  ;  can  also  from  the  properties 
or  relations  that  are  given  by  these  elements,  sever- 
ally determine  the  laws  of  beauty  and  its  relations 
whether  to  science  or  to  use. 


48  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY 

§  48.  Like  every  true  science,  aesthetic 
pe°rienceed°n  Ex~  science  starts  from  a  datum, — from 

something  given  to  it, — starts  in  other 
words  from  experience.  The  beautiful  must  be 
given  as  a  reality  in  experience  at  the  start.  Sci- 
ence then  detects  the  essential  characteristic  or 
attribute  of  the  beauty  given  in  this  experience. 
This  being  ascertained,  we  are  prepared  to  go  forth 
into  the  world  of  experience  and  wherever  we  find 
this  essential  attribute  which  makes  beauty  what  it 
is  we  know  we  find  true  beauty,  however  modified 
in  degree  or  in  relation  to  other  things.  Farther, 
we  may  now  with  the  sure  guide  of  science  gather 
up  all  these  modifications  and  distribute  them  into 
classes,  we  can  scientifically  enumerate  the  various 
leading  kinds  of  beauty  that  exist  in  nature  and 
art.  Proceeding  a  step  farther  we  may  interpret 
out  all  the  laws  of  these  several  kinds  of  beauty 
with  scientific  accuracy  and  thoroughness,  inasmuch 
as  these  laws  will  be  but  essential  attributes  of 
beauty  as  modified  by  the  nature  of  the  objects 
which  it  characterizes  as  beautiful,  or  so  far  as 
beautiful.  And,  finally,  we  can  reach  with  the  same 
assurance  of  scientific  method  the  various  uses  of 
beauty  whether  in  nature  or  in  art,  whether  to 
science,  or  to  personal  culture. 

The  whole  procedure  may  be  thus  marked  with  a 
strict  scientific  character,  and  the  result  which  we 
may  thus  attain  will  be  a  true  science. 

§  46.    The  term  beauty,  like  its  related 

Its  object  the 

Beautiful,  in  the    terms  truth   and  duty,  in  its  strictest 

fullest  sense.  .  .  •" 

import  points  onlv  to  a  single  depart- 


.ESTHETIC    SCIENCE.  49 

ment  of  the  whole  science.  The  Science  of  the 
true  treats  not  only  of  what  is  true  in  the  more 
restricted  and  proper  sense  of  the  word  but  also  of 
the  false,  the  fallacious,  the  partially  true,  the 
mixed  of  truth  and  error.  The  science  of  duty 
treats  not  only  of  the  right  and  the  good,  but  also  of 
the  wrong  and  the  evil,  of  the  action  that  partakes 
of  the  two,  that  is  wrong  in  intent  and  yet  in  a  sense 
good  in  effect,  and  of  the  right  in  intent  followed 
through  the  imperfection  of  the  agent  or  the  dis- 
tortions of  a  corrupted  world,  by  positive  evil.  All 
these  three  grand  sciences  thus  treat  not  only  of 
the  perfect  in  their  several  fields  ;  but  of  the  im- 
perfect also  as  well.  The  science  of  beauty  thus 
treats  of  the  ugly  as  well  as  of  the  positively  beau- 
tiful ;  of  the  sublime  and  the  ludicrous  as  well  as 
of  the  properly  beautiful.  The  science  of  beauty 
is  commensurate  with  the  entire  sphere  of  form  as 
the  embodiment  of  idea  in  matter.  The  beautiful 
is  indeed  the  perfect  in  form  ;  but  science  must 
regard  equally  the  negative  and  the  positive  ;  must 
regard  also  the  practically  perfect  and  the  mixed  in 
respect  of  its  complex  constituents  as  well  as  the 
absolutely  perfect  and  the  purely  beautiful. 

Here  precisely  appears  one  of  the  uses  of  a  true 
science  of  beauty  that  by  exhibiting  the  possibility 
of  the  combination  of  divers  elements  in  every 
beautiful  object,  either  one  of  which  may  be  more 
or  less  perfect  irrespectively  of  the  others,  it  ac- 
counts for  the  proverbial  diversity  of  tastes  and  at 
the  same  time  points  out  the  grounds  of  agreement, 
thus  laying  the  foundation  of  a  legitimate  and  trust- 
worthy science  of  aesthetic  criticism. 


5O  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

We  have  found  beauty  to  be  a  proper  object  for 
the  imagination  ;  and  the  sphere  of  the  imagina- 
tion accordingly  to  be  exactly  commensurate  with 
the  sphere  of  beauty  or  form.  As  science  of  the  one 
is,  with  the  slight  modifications  which  the  diversity 
in  the  points  of  view  occasions,  the  science  of  the 
other,  it  is  a  matter  of  little  or  no  importance 
from  which  the  sphere  common  to  both  observations 
is  contemplated  ;  much  less  is  it  of  importance 
whether  the  science  be  called  the  science  of  Beauty 
or  the  science  of  -^Esthetic  Form,  or  the  science  of 
the  Imagination. 

§  50  The  name  Esthetics  was  first 
S^ifoJJS  given  to  the  science  by  Alexander 
Baumgarten  in  a  work  the  two  parts 
of  which  were  published  at  Frankfort  on  the  Oder 
respectively  in  1750  and  1758.  The  name  was  de- 
rived from  the  passive  side  of  the  imagination, 
Baumgarten's  theory  being  that  the  beautiful  con- 
sisted in  addresses  to  the  sense.  His  work  was  a 
very  imperfect  and  partial  one  ;  but  it  immortalized 
itself  by  its  occasioning  a  name  to  be  fastened  on  the 
science.  The  criticisms  upon  the  name  as  pointing 
to  an  erroneous  theory  of  beauty  are  hardly  just ; 
since  no  name  could  well  be  selected  which  should 
not  be  associated  with  one  element  more  closely 
than  with  another  ;  and  all  words  denoting  spiritual 
objects  were  originally  applied  to  material  things. 

The  science  has  been  cultivated  with  far  more 
assiduity  and  success  in  Germany  than  elsewhere. 
The  catalogue  of  German  writers  on  aesthetics  is 
long,  and  the  works  devoted  to  the  science  volu- 


AESTHETIC    SCIENCE.  51 

minous.  Even  the  histories  of  the  science,  as 
those  of  Vischer,  Zimmermann,  and  Lotze  are  more 
bulky  than  the  aggregate  of  treatises  on  the  sub- 
ject in  English  literature.  The  leading  writers 
after  Baumgarten,  or  contemporary  with  him,  are 
Winckelmann,  Lessing,  Kant,  Schiller,  Herder, 
Schelling,  Solger,  Schleiermacher,  Herbart,  Hegel, 
Weisse,  Hinkel. 

The  French  literature  is  meager  in  sesthetical 
works.  The  most  important  are  the  contributions 
of  the  Abbe  Batteux,  Cousin,  Quatremere  De 
Quincy,  Jouffroy,  and  Taine. 

The  British  authors  of  most  importance  in  this 
field  are  Shaftesbury,  Home,  Hogarth,  Hutcheson, 
Burke,  Alison,  Jeffrey,  Coleridge,  and  Ruskin.  In 
the  metaphysical  works  of  Reid,  Stewart,  Brown, 
Hamilton,  as  well  as  more  recent  writers,  the  sub- 
ject of  beauty  receives  a  more  or  less  thorough  con- 
sideration. In  the  periodical  literature  the  subject 
has  been  touched  from  divers  points  in  manifold 
forms  ;  and  numerous  treatises  on  special  depart- 
ments, such  as  Knight  on  Taste,  Price  on  the  Pic- 
turesque, Repton  on  Landscape  Gardening,  are  to 
be  found  scattered  along  the  path  of  British  literary 
history. 

In  America  besides  the  more  formal  treatises  of 
Moffatt,  Samson,  and  Bascom,  and  the  special  works 
on  Architecture,  Landscape,  and  Painting,  there  is 
no  work  of  commanding  interest. 

§  5 1.  The  History  of  the  theorizing  on 
the  nature  of  beauty,  as  it  appears  in 
literature,  both  before  and  since  the 


52  NATURE   OF   BEAUTY. 

formal  inauguration  of  ^Esthetic  science  by  Baum- 
garten,  demands  a  brief  notice.  It  is  remarkable 
how  speculation  here  has  turned  upon  the  several 
elements  which  we  have  found  to  unite  in  all 
beauty — idea,  matter,  and  the  union  of  the  two  in 
all  form.  One  theorist  has  emphasized  one  of 
these  elements,  another,  another.  The  schools  of 
speculation  in  different  ages  have  repeated  the  same 
story.  The  review  will  furnish  strong  corroboration 
of  the  view  we  have  attained  of  the  true  notion  of 
beauty. 

Beginning  with  Greece,  the  cradle  of 
Grecian  theories,  art  as  of  science,  we  find  Plato  strongly 

inclined  everywhere  to  identify  beauty 
with  idea.  He  holds  back  from  any  articulate  de- 
termination of  the  essential  notion  of  beauty ;  but 
it  is  evident  that  the  idea  was  in  his  undetermined 
apprehension  of  its  nature  the  ruling  element,  the 
characterizing,  the  essential  element.  In  Aristotle, 
on  the  contrary,  while  he  too  abstains  from  any 
precise  determination  of  its  nature,  we  discover  as 
strong  a  tendency  to  recognize  the  essential  char- 
acteristic of  beauty  as  lying  in  the  matter.  In  Plo- 
tinus,  who  united  the  Platonic  with  the  Aristotelian 
philosophy,  or  rather  modified  the  former  by  the 
latter,  we  find  the  distinct  recognition  of  both  el- 
ements, idea  and  matter ;  but  the  uniting  element 
he  puts  in  the  contemplating  mind  ;  there  is  with 
him  no  objective  reality  in  beauty  further  than  this, 
that  the  two  terms  of  beauty  are  objective  ;  the 
copula,  the  link,  is  in  the  viewing  mind  ;  so  it  is  the 
soul  only  that  is  truly  beautiful.  As  he  says  "  never 


AESTHETIC    SCIENCE.  53 


could  eye  that  had  not  been  made  sunlike, 

have  seen  the  sun,  neither  can  soul  that  has  not  be- 

come beautiful  see  beauty." 

§  52.  In  modern  times  the  philosophy  of  beauty 
has  run  nearly  the  same  race.  It  has  reached 
greater  definiteness  of  statement  with  fuller  devel- 
opment of  meaning  ;  but  its  movements  have  been 
in  the  directions  indicated  by  the  Greeks. 

In  Great  Britain  we  have  Shaftesbury  , 
British.  emphasizing   the   idea,   and   following 

hard  in  the  track  of  the  Plotinus  philos- 
ophy. His  conclusion  in  the  long  discussion, 
called  "  The  Moralists,"  is  "  that  there  is  no  princi- 
ple of  Beauty  in  body."  Mind  alone  is  the  princi- 
ple of  all  beauty.  "The  beautiful"  he  says,*  "the 
fair,  the  comely  are  never  in  the  matter,  but  in  the 
art  and  design  ;  never  in  body  itself,  but  in  the  form 
or  forming  power.  Does  not  the  beautiful  form  con- 
fess this,  and  speak  the  beauty  of  the  design  when- 
ever it  strikes  you  ?  What  is  it  but  the  design  which 
strikes  ?  What  is  it  you  admire  but  mind,  or  the 
effect  of  mind  ?  'Tis  mind  alone  which  forms. 
All  which  is  void  of  mind  is  horrid  ;  and  matter 
formless  is  deformity  itself!" 

Burke,  as  we  have  already  seen,  went  in  the  op- 
posite direction  and  emphasized  the  matter.  Beauty 
with  him  is  wholly  for  the  sense. 

Alison  in  his  zeal  to  correct  the  errors  of  both 
these  opposite  views,  laid  the  foundation  for  the  re- 
jection of  all  objective  reality  in  beauty  ;  and  ac- 


Characteristics,  Edition  of  1 738,  vol  ii,  p.  405. 


54  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

cordingly  in  Lord  Jeffrey  the  skeptical  theory  of 
beauty  appears  in  the  place  of  the  pantheistic  or 
absolutist  theory  in  Germany,  and  the  Plotinus 
view  among  the  ancients. 

§  53.    In  France,  the  matter-side  of  the 
French.  nature  of  beauty,  the  Aristotelian  view, 

has  been  the  prominent  one.  In  the 
Eclecticism  of  Cousin  we  find  the  first  intimations  of 
a  change  ;  and  with  him  it  is  the  Platonic  view  that 
prevails.  "  The  inward  alone  is  beautiful."  Beauty 
lies  back  of  the  revelation.  "  It  makes  itself 
known"  is  his  language,  "  by  sensible  traits,  whose 
entire  beauty  is  merely  the  reflection  of  spiritual 
beauty."  And  again,  "the  three  conditions  of 
beauty  are  the  moral  idea,  unity,  and  variety."  "  The 
most  important  element  in  the  beautiful  is  the 
moral  idea  ;  unity  and  variety  should  be  impressed 
with  it,  and  serve  only  to  exhibit  it ;  consequently, 
the  most  important  element  in  taste  and  in  genius 
is  the  sentiment  of  moral  beauty.  That  which  is 
internal  in  man  can  alone  perceive  the  internal  in 
nature.  It  is  my  soul  that  feels  the  soul  of  the  uni- 
verse." Thus  he  slides  quickly  into  the  new-pla- 
tonic  philosophy  as  expounded  by  Plotinus,  and  ex- 
pressly adopts  its  doctrine  that  "the  beautiful  is  en- 
veloped informs  without  being  constituted  by  them  ; 
we  must  disengage  it ;  the  beautiful  is  simply  moral 
beauty,  an  idea,  a  sentiment,"  and  the  end  of  all  is 
absolutism,  pantheism.  "  God  is  the  foundation  of 
truth,  beauty,  and  goodness  ;  the  absolute,  who  is  re- 
flected wholly  in  all  his  manifestations,  or  in  ordinary 
language,  in  all  his  creation.  The  Deity  is  both  in 


AESTHETIC    SCIENCE.  55 

nature  and  in  man  ;  and  here  is  found  the  explana- 
tion of  man's  sympathy  with  nature." 

Jouffroy  maintains  the  twofold  element  in  every 
aesthetic  object ;  the  visible  which  is  the  sign,  and  . 
the  invisible  which  is  the  thing  signified,  or  what 
we  have  called  idea ;  "but  of  these  two  elements  that 
which  acts  upon  us  aesthetically  is  the  invisible." 
He  immediately  adds  what  indicates  an  unsettled 
judgment  in  the  matter.  "  Perhaps,  however,  the 
invisible  would  not  act  upon  us  aesthetically  if  we 
could  see  it  face  to  face  and  stripped  of  forms  ; 
at  least  in  the  present  state  the  invisible  which 
alone  moves  us  must,  to  move  us,  manifest  itself 
by  forms  or  material  signs." 

§  54.  In  Germany,  Baumgarten,  follow- 
German  theories.  ing  the  lead  of  the  speculation  of  his 

.  n 

times,  puts  all  beauty  in  the  matter  and 
allows  it  being  only  for  and  by  the  sense,  holding 
in  logical  consistency  with  this  '  that  beauty  cannot 
exist  without  desire  for  its  possession,  and  that  the 
true  aim  of  beauty  consists  in  awakening  desire ; 
the  highest  beauty  is  where  the  sense-known  per- 
fection is  greatest,  that  is  in  nature.  Hence  the 
highest  art  is  to  imitate  nature.  All  fiction  is  hate- 
ful.' In  these  views  he  is  mainly  followed  by  Esch- 
enburg  and  Eberhard. 

The  Aristotelian  or  matter  side  of  beauty  thus 
took  the  lead  in  time  in  Germany.  The  Platonic 
or  idea  side  was  a  subsequent  development  of 
aesthetic  science  there.  It  was  the  logical  result  of 
the  idealistic  philosophy.  The  idea  was  in  this 
view  everything.  "  The  idea  comes  out  of  the  object 


56  NATURE    OF    BEAUTY. 

to  meet  the  mind."  But  this  partial  view  could  not 
remain.  Matter  and  idea  came  to  be  both  recognized 
as  indispensable  in  all  beauty,  and  it  was  their  union 
in  some  way  which  constituted  the  beauty.  Kant 
placed  this  union,  the  uniting  act,  in  the  judgment 
as  the  faculty  by  which  all  multiplicity  is  gathered 
into  a  unity.  And  since  Kant,  the  prevalent  theory 
has  been  that  beauty  essentially  consists  not  in  the 
idea  merely,  or  in  the  matter  only  ;  but  in  a  union 
of  the  two  effected  by  the  faculty  of  the  judgment. 
The  unity  is  essential ;  but  it  is  a  mere  subjective 
unity,  which  of  course,  as  we  have  seen,  denies  all 
objective  reality  in  beauty,  and  a  subjective  unity 
effected  specifically  by  the  judgment. 

It  is  apparent  that  if  we  but  drop  the  subjective 
coloring  of  the  German  speculations  and  adopt  the 
doctrine  that  beauty  has  a  true  objective  reality,  we 
must  pass  directly  to  the  theory  presented  in  the 
preceding  chapters  ; — that  while  both  idea  and  mat- 
ter are  recognized  as  essential  in  all  beauty,  the 
union  between  these  elements  is  objective  like  them. 
This  theory  is  thus  the  legitimate  result  of  all  spec- 
ulations on  the  nature  of  beauty  to  the  present 
time  and  must  be  accepted  as  the  teaching  of  the 
history  of  aesthetic  philosophy  when  exploded  errors 
are  rejected  and  generally  admitted  truths  are  re- 
ceived. 

V 


PRINCIPLES    OF    DIVISION.  57 


BOOK  II. 

KINDS     OF     BEAUTY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PRINCIPLES  OF  DIVISION. 

Division  founded  §  55-  In  classifying,  as  there  may  be 
atntHbu!t1stiol  ever  as  many  classes  as  there  are  attri- 
butes to  be  recognized,  it  is  indispen- 
sable for  any  thorough,  scientific  study,  that  the 
ground  of  the  division  or  classification  be  clearly 
indicated.  It  is  the  essential  attributes  of  course 
which  give  the  strictest  scientific  division.  If  these 
attributes  be  correctly  taken,  if  they  be  the  com- 
prehensive attributes  so  far  as  the  essential  nature 
of  the  subject  is  regarded,  and  if  they  be  properly 
coordinated,  the  resulting  classification  will  be 
scientifically  correct. 

But  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  while  the  essential 
Attributes  must  give  the  proper  scientific  division, 
these  attributes  are  never  found  in  actual  objects  of 
beauty  single  or  pure  and  unmodified.  We  find  no 
object  thus  that  is  beautiful  solely  either  in  respect 
to  its  matter,  or  to  its  idea,  or  to  its  revelation. 
Material  beauty,  Ideal  beauty,  and  Formal  beauty 


58  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

ever  unite  in  varying  degrees,  so  that  no  object  is 
wholly  destitute  of  either.  It  is  consequently  the 
predominance  of  one  or  the  other  of  these  attributes 
which  characterize  the  object  as  of  one  or  the  other 
kind.  A  poem,  thus,  that  is  characterized  as 
rhythmical,  must  have  some  degree,  although,  it 
may  be,  a  very  low  degree,  of  ideal  beauty.  In  the 
same  manner  we  speak  of  a  senseless  book,  when  we 
by  no  means  intend  that  there  is  no  sense  at  all,  no 
idea  in  it.  In  the  same  way  we  characterize  a  man 
as  intellectual,  because  intelligence  predominates 
over  sensibility  and  will,  although  no  act  of  intelli- 
gence is  possible  in  a  soul  utterly  destitute  of  these 
other  capacities. 

In  determining  the  kinds  of  beauty,  we  should 
thus  found  our  classifications  for  scientific  study  on 
the  essential  properties  of  beauty.  These  we  have 
found  to  be  three: — i.  the  idea;  2.  the  matter; 
3.  the  embodiment  of  the  idea  in  the  matter.  All 
beauty  may  be  correctly  and  completely  character- 
ized, accordingly,  in  reference  to  the  idea,  the  mat- 
ter, and  the  embodiment  of  the  idea  in  the  matter, 
so  far  as  its  essential  nature  is  concerned.  It  would 
-be  differently  characterized  and  differently  classi- 
fied if  it  were  to  be  considered  in  reference  to  its 
laws  or  its  uses  and  other  relations. 

§  56.  But  each  of  these  prime  constit- 
KindaCndDegre0ef  uents  of  beauty  may  appear  in  any  ob- 
ject in  different  degrees,  both  abso- 
lutely and  relatively.  The  idea  may  be  of  a  higher 
or  lower  grade  ;  or  the  matter  more  or  less  meet ; 
or  the  embodiment  itself  more  or  less  perfect.  It 


PRINCIPLES    OF    DIVISION.  59 

becomes  necessary  to  recognize  this  principle  in 
the  study  of  form  ;  especially  as  the  very  term 
itself,  beauty,  suggests  at  once  the  expectation  of 
something  more  or  less  perfect. 

On  these  two  principles  accordingly,  of  degree 
and  of  essential  nature,  we  proceed  to  mark  out  the 
different  kinds  of  beauty. 

The  one  of  the  two  principles  named, 
i.  Gradations.  that  of  degree,  will  guide  us  to  those 
kinds  of  beauty  which  are  character- 
ized as  more  or  less  perfect  in  respect  to  all  or 
either  of  the  several  constituents  of  beauty.  It 
will  give  the  gradations  of  beauty. 

The  other  principle,  that  founded  in 
bea*tydsof  tne  essential  nature  or  constituent  ele- 
ments of  beauty,  will  guide  us  to  the 
kinds  of  beauty  characterized  in  reference  to  the 
prominence  of  the  particular  elements  in  the  object. 
It  will  give  us  the  kinds  of  beauty  in  the  narrower 
sense. 

This  last  named  classification  of  beauty,  founded 
on  the  several  essential  elements  of  beauty — idea, 
matter,  form — will  contain  the  more  important  divis- 
ions, to  each  of  which  it  will  be  necessary  to 
devote  a  separate  chapter.  The  subdivisions  here 
will  be  : 

1.  Beauty  distinguished  in  respect  to  the   idea 
revealed  ; 

2.  Beauty  distinguished  in  respect  to  the  reveal- 
ing matter ;  and 

3.  Beauty  distinguished  in  respect  to  the  revela- 
tion itself  of  idea  in  matter,  or  proper  form. 


6O  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

We  may,  without  dissenting  from  ait 

1.  Ideal.  * 

2.  Material          thonzed  usage  in  language,  denominate 

3.  Formal.  °  °       ° 

these  higher  classes  of  beauty  respect- 
ively :  i.  Ideal  Beauty ;  2.  Material  Beauty  ;  and  3. 
Formal  Beauty. 

§  57.    It  will  be  necessary  in  the  use  of 
e^s?    these  denominations  of  beauty  to  guard 

against  the  ambiguity  arising  from  the 
different  meanings  which  have  been  attached  to 
them.  This  diversity  of  meaning  is  an  unavoidable 
necessity  until  the  science  becomes  fixed  and 
mature.  In  the  use  of  language  by  some,  particu- 
larly by  those  who  found  all  beauty  in  idea  alone, 
the  denomination  ideal  beauty  would  include  all 
kinds  of  beauty,  and  the  expression  would  be  tauto- 
logical, meaning  only  beautiful  beauty.  So  the 
denomination  material  beauty  is  not  unfrequently 
used  to  distinguish  that  which  is  expressed  in  phys- 
ical matter  from  other  kinds  of  beauty  ;  and  to  one 
who  accepts  the  theory  of  Burke  all  beauty  is 
material.  In  the  same  way  the  expression  formal 
beauty  is  sometimes  applied  to  that  kind  of  beauty 
which  appears  in  visible  figure  or  outline  as  op- 
posed to  other  kinds  of  beauty,  such  as  those  given 
in  painting  or  in  discouue.  But  if  the  three  ele- 
ments named  are  recognized  to  be  distinct  constit- 
uents of  beauty,  then  it  is  clear  we  may  distinguish 
beauty  in  reference  to  the  attributes  which  belong 
respectively  to  each  of  these  elements ;  and  the 
higher  class,  which  comprises  the  several  groups  of 
attributes  found  in  each  element,  may  properly  be 
named  from  the  element  itself. 


PRINCIPLES    OF    DIVISION.  6 1 

It  will  of  course  be  understood  that  when  a  par- 
ticular kind  of  beauty  is  denominated  ideal,  it  is 
only  because  that  element  predominates  or  charac- 
terizes those  objects  ;  or  because  perhaps  that  it  is 
one  of  the  characteristics  which  belong  to  it.  It 
will  not  be  supposed  that  the  other  elements,  those 
of  matter  and  of  form,  do  not  appear  at  all  in  the 
object ;  but  only  that  they  do  not  appear  as  those 
which  are  to  be  regarded  at  the  time.  There  is,  for 
illustration,  as  we  shall  see,  a  species  of  beauty 
called  propriety.  It  is  founded  in  the  idea  revealed. 
Wherever  it  appears  in  an  object,  the  object  may  be 
characterized  as  having  that  attribute  of  ideal 
beauty, — as  being  proper,  Jit,  decorous,  or  the  like  ; 
that  is,  as  having  a  certain  attribute  of  beauty  at- 
taching to  the  idea  revealed  in  it,  not  to  the  matter 
as  of  marble  or  color  or  language,  nor  yet  to  the  form 
itself  or  mode  of  embodiment  as  sublime  or  comic. 

This  danger  of  ambiguity,  until  the  nomenclature 
is  fixed  by  use,  is  encountered  everywhere  in  ab- 
stract science.  The  terms  at  first  borrowed  from 
common  speech  are  used  metaphorically  and  hence 
loosely,  sometimes  with  a  wider,  sometimes  with  a 
narrower  import,  occasioning  danger  of  error  or 
even  of  contradiction.  Thus  in  moral  science  we 
have  an  exact  analogy.  In  every  moral  act  there 
must  be  motive,  end,  and  action  from  the  motive  to 
that  end  ;  there  must  be  love  as  the  starting  point, 
good  as  the  goal  or  end,  and  the  actual  movement 
of  love  to  the  end  or  result.  Yet  the  term  love  prop- 
erly pointing  to  the  motive,  is  often  applied  to  the 
whole  moral  character  of  the  act.  So  dso  goodness, 


63  KINDS    OF    BEAUT  V. 

which  properly  looks  only  to  the  end  or  result,  and 
rectitude  which  regards  the  movement  itself  from 
the  starting  point  or  motive  to  the  goal,  are  each  in 
the  same  way  often  applied  to  the  whole  concrete 
act.  They  are  correctly  so  used  because  each  im- 
plies the  other.  There  can  be  no  moral  act  except 
as  involving  a  motive,  an  end,  and  a  movement  from 
the  motive  to  the  end  ;  hence  no  love  without  good 
or  without  right ;  no  right  without  love  and  good  ; 
no  good  without  love  and  right,  in  the  proper  moral 
sense.  And  precisely  as  in  ethical  science  we 
have  antagonistic  systems  of  morals,  one  founding 
all  morality  in  the  motive,  love — another  in  the  end, 
good, — sometimes  good  narrowed  to  mere  utility, — 
and  a  third  in  rectitude,  so  we  have  in  aesthetic 
science,  analogous  theories  founding  beauty,  one  in 
the  idea,  another  in  the  matter,  a  third  in  the  mere 
union  of  the  two.  The  literature  of  aesthetics  as  of 
ethics  accordingly  abounds  with  diversities  of  usage 
in  the  terms  employed.  Hence  the  importance  of 
guarding  against  the  ambiguities  to  which  such  use 
of  language  gives  rise.  And  particularly  here  it 
may  be  remarked  that  the  terms  ideal,  material,  and 
formal are  used  to  denote  the  several  kinds  of  beau- 
ty which  may  be  distinguished  when  we  regard  the 
different  attributes  belonging  severally  to  the  three 
great  elements  of  all  beauty  ;  when  we  regard  the 
attributes  that  respectively  belong  to  the  idea,  to  the 
matter,  and  to  the  form  itself  in  an  object  of  beauty. 
§  58.  It  is,  moreover,  ever  to  be  borne 
a^Asto  classify-  jn  mm(^)  jn  a^  classifications  of  objects, 

in  whatever  department  of  study,  that 


PRINCIPLES    OF    DIVISION.  6$ 

there  may  be  fault  or  imperfection  of  result  by  rea- 
son of  either  of  two  errors  in  the  procedure.  If  we 
proceed  exclusively  in  reference  to  the  attributes 
which  we  have  by  our  methods  of  abstraction  and 
selection  been  enabled  to  recognize  and  enumerate, 
we  shall  be  liable  from  the  imperfection  incident  to 
all  human  effort  to  overlook  some  kinds  of  beauty, 
or  to  misplace  others.  Our  verv  enumeration  of 
attributes  may  be  partial  or  inaccurate.  If  on  the 
other  hand  we  proceed  from  observation,  and  enu- 
merate the  different  kinds  of  beauty  as  they  hap- 
pen to  offer  themselves  to  our  view,  we  shall  be 
liable  to  fail  in  completeness  and  also  in  scientific 
order.  The  only  safe  way  for  us  will  be  to  begin 
with  the  ascertained  elements  of  beauty  and  with 
the  analysis  which  our  study  of  them  may  give 
us,  and  then  go  out  into  the  outer  world  of 
beauty  and  seek  after  the  objects  which  may  be 
characterized  respectively  by  the  several  attributes 
we  have  distinguished.  It  will  be  only  by  the  care- 
ful combination  of  both  methods  of  procedure  that 
we  can  hope  to  guard  ourselves  from  error.  If  we 
find  that  our  a  priori  classification  is  fully  sustained 
by  our  observation  as  it  sweeps  over  the  entire  field 
of  beauty,  we  may  feel  a  legitimate  confidence  not 
only  in  the  validity  of  our  classification,  but  also  in 
the  correctness  of  our  enumeration  of  the  essential 
attributes  of  beauty. 


64  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 


CHAPTER  n. 

GRADATIONS    OF  BEAUTY. 

§  50.   The  first    grand  distinction   of 

Gradations      af  3 

Beauty  as  Perfect  beauty,  founded  on  degree,  gives  us  at 
once  the  characters  of  Perfect  and  Int- 
petfect  beauty.  All  beauty  must,  in  some  respect, 
either  in  itself  or  relatively  to  the  mind  that  con- 
templates it,  be  characterized  by  us  in  our  imperfec- 
tion, as  imperfect.  To  the  infinite  eye  the  creation 
all  appeared  good,  perfect, — a  faultless  cosmos ;  while 
to  the  finite  mind  that  can  take  in  but  a  part  and 
cannot  see  everything  in  its  full  relationship,  it  must 
of  course  seem  imperfect  or  faulty.  Perfectness, 
accordingly,  is  with  us  only  relative  ;  it  never  is  dis- 
covered by  us  as  absolute.  It  is  so  with  truth  ;  it  is 
so  with  duty.  We  speak  of  a  perfect  truth, — perfect 
in  itself,  and  perfect  in  its  expression ;  while  we 
do  not  mean  absolutely  that  in  none  of  its  elements 
it  were  not  possible  even  for  the  Infinite  one  to  add 
to  its  perfectness.  So  we  denominate  an  action  as 
perfectly  right ;  while  yet  we  do  not  mean  at  all 
that  it  was  utterly  insusceptible  of  improvement  in 
any  respect.  It  may  be  that  we  are  unable  to  see 
how  there  may  be  change  or  addition  in  respect  of 
any  element  or  any  relation  ;  yet  we  would  be  far 
from  maintaining  that  an  all-seeing  eye  might  not 


GRADATIONS    OF    BEAUTY.  65 

discern  a  spot  or  a  defect.  We  may  accordingly 
with  propriety  and  in  accordance  with  the  estab- 
lished usages  of  language,  speak  of  gradations  of 
what  we  even  call  perfect  beauty. 

§  60.  Perfectness  in  beauty  may  re- 
pSl^uty^  gard  the  /aggregate  of  the  elements 
which  enter  into  our  complex  idea  of 
it,  or  these  several  elementsundividually.  We  may 
speak  of  an  object  as  being  perfectly  beautiful  in 
itself  as  a  whole,  or  in  respect  of  one  or  more  of  its 
parts  or  of  its  relations. 

Perfect  beauty,  in  the  former  of  these  two  appli- 
cations of  the  term,  exists  where  the  idea  revealed, 
the  revealing  matter,  and  the  embodiment  of  the 
idea  in  the  matter,  are  each  perfect  in  their  rela- 
tions to  one  another. 

Lower  gradations  of  perfectness  in  beauty  are 
dependent  on  the  degree,  in  which  the  several  ele- 
ments enter  into  the  object.  It  may  be  character- 
ized as  perfect  in  respect  of  its  idea,  when  that  is 
of  the  highest,  purest,  richest  order,  not  indeed 
absolutely  in  itself  but  as  an  element  of  form  ;  as 
something  to  be  revealed.  Then  its  perfectness 
must  be  judged  in  reference  to  the  matter  in  which 
it  must  be  embodied.  One  idea  is  fit  only  for  a 
certain  matter ;  another  for  another.  Ideas  of 
affection,  of  tenderness,  sympathy,  kindness,  and 
the  like,  are  more  perfectly  expressed  in  color  ; 
those  of  skill  and  power,  in  outline ;  and,  once 
more,  those  of  motion,  of  action  and  event,  in 
music,  or  poetry.  Still  further,  perfectness  of  form, 
even  in  respect  to  idea,  must  have  respect  to  the  eye 
that  is  to  contemplate  it. 


66  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

In  like  manner  in  respect  to  the  matter  of  form, 
we  find  gradations  of  perfectness  both  in  itself  and 
in  its  relations  to  the  idea  and  the  design  of 
the  object.  The  ideas  of  majesty  and  solemnity 
which  appropriately  belong  to  the  architecture  of  a 
temple  find  in  the  massiveness  and  durability  and 
firmness  of  stone  a  more  perfect  embodiment ;  the 
ideas  of  seclusion,  quiet,  cheerfulness  which  should 
enter  in  the  architecture  of  settled  home-life  may 
be  better  expressed  in  brick  or  wood  or  concrete ; 
while,  further,  the  ideas  of  movement,  of  celerity,  and 
change  which  characterize  the  life  of  a  nomadic 
tribe  or  of  a  military  host,  are  pictured  best  in  the 
light  movable  tent  of  canvas. 

The-H:hird  and  the  more  vital  element  of  beauty, 
also  admits  of  its  peculiar  gradations  of  perfect- 
ness.  We  shall  find  different  kinds  of  beauty  charac- 
terized in  respect  of  this  element.  Each  of  these 
may  be  perfect  in  its  kind.  For  a  single  illustra- 
tion the  rendering  which  would  be  recognized  as 
perfect  in  the  comic  would  be  utterly  condemned 
and  reprobated  in  tragedy.  The  same  variegated 
subject  of  human  experience  in  its  strange  mixture 
of  reason  and  passion,  joy  and  sorrow,  and,  in  the 
same  matter  of  color  or  of  word  in  sound,  would  be 
rendered  with  characteristics  of  diverse  perfectness 
by  Hogarth  and  by  Guido  Reni,  in  a  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream  and  a  King  Lear. 

§  6 1.    Imperfect  Beauty  is   character- 

Beautyerfcct         IZQ&    ^Y     corresponding      gradations. 

Either  of  the  three  constituents  maybe 

in  a  greater  or  less  degree  of  imperfectness  in  itself 


GRADATIONS    OF    BEAUT*.  6/ 

or  in  relationship.  We  may  distinguish  indefinite 
gradations  from  those  instances  in  which  the  faint- 
est, lowest,  most  imperfect  idea,  or  the  most  unmeet 
matter,  or  the  rudest  rendering  just  admits  the  ob- 
ject within  the  domain  of  beauty  or  of  form,  up  to 
the  very  vestibule  of  its  perfect  being. 

§  62.  But  inasmuch  as  Form  is  for  the 
tloSoffifauly:  observer  as  well  as  the  producer,  we 
must  recognize  a  subjective  as  well  as 
an  objective  perfectness  in  beauty.  There  may  be 
a  perfect  man  while  we  fail  to  discern  the  per- 
fection. What  is  perfect  in  itself  may  to  our  im- 
perfect vision  appear  discolored,  distorted.  So  the 
perfect  man  appeared  to  the  distempered  vision  of 
his  people.  To  our  experience  of  perfect  beauty 
there  is  requisite  perfect  discernment  by  us. 

Not  only  is  undistempered  vision  required,  but  a 
certain  degree  of  power  is  necessary  that  will  vary 
with  the  kind  of  beauty  to  be  apprehended.  The 
phases  of  Venus,  its  approaches  and  withdrawals  to 
and  from  the  sun,  revealing  to  the  astronomer  a  law 
of  unintermitting  force  and  unvarying  regularity,  are 
to  him  beautiful  in  a  high  degree  ;  he  contemplates 
them  with  a  profound  admiration  and  pleasure  ;  but 
to  the  uninstructed  eye  no  beauty  of  this  kind 
appears,  for  it  has  no  capacity  to  apprehend  it. 
The  beauty  is  real ;  but  to  be  experienced  there 
must  be  a  corresponding  capacity  in  the  subject  to 
which  it  is  to  be  revealed. 

A  certain  degree  of  mental  energy  is  thus  neces- 
sary in  the  apprehension  of  beauty.  Certain  forms 
of  beauty  may  be  apprehensible  to  an  infant's  capac- 


68  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

ity  ;  certain  forms,  it  might  be,  can  be  apprehended 
only  by  an  angelic  capacity.  And  between  these 
limits  there  are  innumerable  gradations  of  beauty 
in  respect  to  the  facility  with  which  they  may  be 
apprehended,  requiring  corresponding  gradations  of 
mental  energy.  It  is  just  so  with  truth.  That  the 
world  turns  round  on  its  axis  is  a  truth  beyond  the 
capacities  of  apprehension  to  some  undeveloped 
minds  who  can  demonstrate  its  utter  falseness  and 
absurdity  most  conclusively  to  themselves  by  the 
fact  that  their  bodies  do  not  fall  off  when  the  earth 
in  its  revolution  brings  them  under. 

Especially  worthy  of  notice  here  is  the  consider- 
ation that  this  imperfect  apprehension  arising  from 
mere  want  of  capacity  will  perhaps  more  generally 
show  itself  in  its  grasping  but  a  part  of  a  whole 
revelation  of  an  idea.  The  sense  that  can  only 
apprehend  the  strong  coloring  of  a  Titian  will  con- 
demn and  reject  paintings  in  which  the  effect  is 
designed  to  be  in  the  outline  rather  than  in  the 
color,  which  yet  the  world  of  cultivated  mind  have 
recognized  as  masterpieces  of  art. 

Not  only  may  particular  properties  escape  the 
apprehension  of  an  incompetent  observer,  and  so 
the  whole  object  appear  to  him  mutilated,  incom- 
plete, and  therefore  ugly,  but,  what  is  more  common 
still,  the  relations  of  the  object  may  fail  to  be 
apprehended,  and,  in  this  way,  real  beauty  be  un- 
noticed. That  famous  city  of  blockheads,  Thracian 
Abdera,  it  is  fabled,  rejected  a  statue  of  colossal 
proportions  with  correspondingly  gross  features 
and  rough  outline,  that  had  been  carefully  propor- 


GRADATIONS    OF    BEAUT?.  69 

tioned  by  the  skillful  artist  to  be  seen  and  admired 
on  the  top  of  their  lofty  citadel  by  observers  on  the 
ground,  because  it  was  so  gross  and  rough,  as  they 
criticized  it  close  at  hand  ;  and  they  accordingly 
elevated  instead  a  five  foot  statue  of  Venus,  which 
was,  indeed,  a  master-piece  of  Praxiteles,  but  on  the 
distant  summit  appeared  to  all  observers  only  an 
unmeaning  excrescence  and  deformity.  So  the  uni- 
verse of  God,  the  grand  fabric  of  the  All-wise  may, 
when  apprehended  only  in  a  part  of  its  properties 
and  relations  seem  wanting  in  beauty  ;  while  a  full 
apprehension  shall  recognize  it  as  a  perfect  cosmos. 
These  gradations  of  perfectness  in  beauty  which 
are  determined  in  reference  to  the  eye  of  the  ob- 
server, both  relatively  to  the  object  as  a  whole  and 
also  to  its  parts  in  their  relations  to  the  whole  are 
well  indicated  by  the  poet. 

Some  figures  monstrous  and  mis-shaped  appear, 
Considered  singly,  or  beheld  too  near, 
Which  but  proportioned  to  their  light  or  place, 
Due  distance  reconciles  to  form  and  grace. 
***** 

In  wit  as  nature,  what  affects  our  hearts 
Is  not  the  exactness  of  peculiar  parts  ; 
"Tis  not  a  lip  or  eye,  we  beauty  call, 
But  the  joint  force  and  full  result  of  all. 

Pope's  Essay  on  Criticism,  i  ~t  1-4  ;  243-6. 


7O  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 


CHAPTER  III. 


IDEAL      BEAUTY. 


§  63.    Under  that  class  of  attributes  of 
General  Di vis-    keauty  which  pertain  to  the  idea  re- 


ions. 


vealed  we  find  as  many  kinds  of  beauty 
as  we  distinguish  modifications  of  the  idea.  By 
this  term  idea,  we  understand  any  modification  of 
mind ;  any  expressed  thought,  or  feeling,  or  pur- 
pose— §  1 1 .  The  familiarly  recognized  departments 
of  mind  guide  us  at  once  to  the  subordinate  divis- 
ions of  ideal  beauty.  These  departments  are  Intel- 
ligence, Sensibility,  and  Will. 

§  64.    But  mind  in  whatever  state  or 

Beauty  of  Action  .  ...  ... 

and  Beauty  of   modification  maintains  its  essentially 

Repose.  .  . 

active  nature.  All  idea  is  consequently 
but  a  form  of  activity.  But  as  perception  lives 
on  in  memory ;  as  a  thought  that  when  first  ex- 
cited comes  forth  fresh  and  active  and  then  sinks 
back  into  -seeming  unconsciousness,  yet  lives  a 
hidden  life  that  may  be  called  up  again  and  thus 
proves  its  permanence  ;  so;  generally,  idea,  however 
essentially  active,  may  rest  in  quiet  and  then  offer 
no  disturbance  to  the  consciousness.  We  have 
these  two  modifications  of  ideas  accordingly ; — ideas 
of  activity  and  ideas  of  repose.  We  shall  have 
consequently  kinds  of  beauty  which  we  may  char- 


IDEAL    BEAUTY.  /I 

acterize  respectively  as  beauty  of  action  and  beauty 
of  repose.  This  distinction  will  reveal  itself  in  all 
the  kinds  of  beauty  which  are  to  be  noticed. 

§  65.  The  first  class  of  attributes,  per- 
BeIufyUectual  taining  to  the  idea  in  beauty,  embraces 

those  founded  in  the  intelligence.  Of 
these  we  find  recognized  in  familiar  literature  two 
leading  divisions.  They  are  founded  respectively 
on  the  two  great  classes  of  the  forms  of  the  intelli- 
gence,— immediate  and  mediate.  Immediate  cogni- 
tions embrace  perceptions  or  cognitions  of  mate- 
rial objects  and  intuitions  or  cognitions  of  immate- 
rial objects,  whether  as  originally  given  by  their 
respective  objects  or  as  retained  in  memory  and 
reproduced  in  recollection.  Mediate  cognitions  are 
the  operations  of  thought,  or  the  faculty  of  com- 
parison, or  of  judgment. 

§  66.  In  order  that  the  intelligence 
FuS.°fTruth"  may  apprehend  its  object,  whether  in 

perception  or  intuition,  it  is  necessary 
that  it  be  taken  as  a  whole,  consisting  of  congru- 
ous parts.  This  is  a  prime  condition  of  all  knowl- 
edge, all  intelligence,  all  truth,  that  its  object  be  a 
whole  made  up  of  harmonizing  parts.  Truth  of 
reality,  whether  in  object  by  itself,  or  in  relation,  is 
but  a  whole — a  unity  made  up  of  harmonizing  parts. 
Truth  of  apprehension — that  is  intelligence,  is  but 
such  a  whole  of  harmonizing  parts  and  relations 
brought  into  our  apprehension.  Truth  of  representa- 
tion is  but  such  a  whole  made  up  of  original  and  copy, 
the  corresponding  parts  of  which  harmonize  with 
each  other.  The  source  and  origin  of  that  admirable 


72  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

designation  of  the  universe  by  the  classic  minds  of 
Greece  and  Rome  as  Cosmos  and  Mundus,  seems 
to  lie  in  the  fundamental  connection  between 
beauty  and  this  harmony  of  parts  and  relations, 
Wherever  we  recognize  this  revealed  truthfulness, — 
this  internal  propriety,  this-  wholeness  of  all  the 
parts  that  are  proper  to  an  object — that  belong  to 
it  all  in  harmony  so  as  to  constitute  the  parts  into 
one  whole,  we  recognize  beauty.  It  is  an  essential 
attribute  of  intelligence  that  it  apprehends  its  ob- 
ject as  one  whole.  The  revelation  of  an  object  as 
one  whole,  as  a  harmonized  diversity,  is  a  charac- 
teristic work  of  intelligence.  This  quality  of  truth- 
fulness is  an  essential  in  all  beauty.  As  a  charac- 
teristic quality,  when  it  reigns  paramount  over 
other  attributes,  it  constitutes  a  class — a  kind  of 
beauty.  We  have,  accordingly,  what  may  legiti- 
mately be  denominated  a  truthful  beauty. 

§  67.  Closely  allied  to  this  is  the  kind 
Of  Fitness  of  beauty  which  we  apprehend  in  the 

revelation  of  external  propriety — of  fit- 
ness. Instead  of  the  harmony  in  the  parts  as  mak- 
ing a  united  whole  to  our  apprehension,  it  is  the 
harmony  of  relations  between  an  object  and  other 
objects  which  taken  together  make  up  a  larger  whole. 
In  other  words,  here,  instead  of  the  relation  of  parts 
to  a  whole,  it  is  the  relation  of  parts  to  parts  that 
is  regarded.  This  attribute,  founded  on  the  appre- 
hension of  an  object  in  harmonious  relations  to 
other  objects  around,  is  the  decorum,  quod  decet,  of 
the  Latin  tongue,  and  the  Greek  to  JIQEJIOV,  in  the 
more  common  use  of  those  terms. 


IDEAL  BEAUTY.  73 

There  is  then  a  beauty  of  fitness.  It  is  the  kind 
of  beauty  which  most  characterizes  refined  and 
pleasing  manners — when  all  the  conveniences,  pro- 
prieties, fitnesses  of  the  place,  the  time,  the  occa- 
sion, the  persons,  the  attending  circumstances 
generally,  are  regarded.  We  take  little  notice  of 
the  personal  qualities  otherwise, — the  power  of  in- 
tellect, the  grade  of  passion,  or  the  characters  of 
energy,  the  qualities  of  bodily  form  or  complexion, 
the  dress,  except  as  they  appear  in  these  external 
relations,  when  we  contemplate  the  beauty  there  is 
in  manners.  So  in  the  orator,  it  is  the  observance 
of  these  external  relations, — to  the  occasion,  to  the 
persons  concerned,  and  the  like, — which  mainly 
constitutes  the  beauty  of  fitness — the  decorum,  the 
quod  decet  on  which  Cicero  dwells  so  much  and 
which  he  denominates  the  chief  thing  in  art,  and 
which  Milton  also  speaks  of  as  "  the  grand  mas- 
ter-piece to  observe."  The  general  prominence  of 
this  element  of  beauty  is  recognized  by  Plato,  as  he 
represents  Socrates  leading  Hippias  to  admit  that 
a  stirrer  made  of  figwood  is  more  beautiful  than 
one  of  gold  because  more  fitting  to  the  use  of  such 
a  utensil ; — it  would  not  break  the  porridge-pot  and 
so  spill  the  porridge,  while  it  would  besides  give 
flavor  to  the  porridge. 

§  68.  Truthful  beauty  includes  under 
or  Unity.  it  several  distinct  species.  First  and 

most  important  is  that  of  Unity.  So 
universal  is  this  kind  of  beauty  in  all  perfect  form 
that  it  is  easily  accepted  more  as  the  condition  of 
beauty  than  a  distinct  species  or  element.  It  is 


74  KINDS   OF   BEAUTY. 

requisite  in  all  form  because  perfect  form  is  essen- 
tially the  expression  of  perfect  idea,  the  most 
fundamental  characteristic  of  which  is  unity. 

§  69.  A  second  variety  is  the  beauty 
of  Harmony.  Qf  Harmony.  All  harmony  is  grounded 

on  a  fundamental  unity — on  an  under- 
lying identity.  Harmony  is  diversified  unity ;  or 
diversity  in  unity.  It  is  of  all  degrees ;  from  that 
lowest  degree  in  which  the  diverse  is  hardly  dis- 
cernible in  the  predominant  oneness,  as  a  cloudless 
sky  which  displays  only  the  diversity  of  a  deep 
zenith  blue  with  the  paler  blue  of  the  horizon,  up 
to  that  in  which  the  diversity  approximates  irrecon- 
cilable contradiction  or  outreaches  the  capacity  to 
take  into  our  experience.  What  we  denominate  a 
perfect  harmony  is  thus  that  which  affords  the 
largest  and  richest  diversity  that  our  contemplating 
capacity  can  without  labor  apprehend.  Thus  in 
music,  the  lowest  grade  of  harmony  is  in  the  union 
of  different  voices  sounding  the  same  note  which 
are  said  then  to  be  in  unison  ;  a  higher  grade  of 
the  harmony  of  unison  is  that  where  the  different 
voices  sound  a  tonic  and  its  octaves  ;  still  a  higher 
degree  of  harmony  occurs  when  different  voices 
sound  the  tonic  and  dominant.  The  harmony  is 
enriched  by  the  larger  diversity  of  voices  or  in- 
struments, and  of  consonant  sounds,  all  finding  a 
ground  of  union  in  the  sameness  of  the  tonic  or 
key  note. 

§  70.  This  diversity  in  unity  may  be 
of  Contrast.  viewed  either  more  prominently  in 

respect  to  the  harmonizing  unity,  giv- 


IDEAL    BEAUTY.  75 

ing  as  we  have  seen  proper  harmony,  or  more  prom- 
inently in  respect  to  the  diversity,  giving  the  form 
of  intelligence  called  Contrast. 

Contrast  thus  is  pleasing  becaus.e  it  is  a  form  of 
the  intelligence.  It  is  a  defective  view  which  as- 
cribes the  pleasure  it  gives  merely  to  the  increased 
activity  which  it  requires  of  the  contemplating 
mind  in  order  to  apprehend  it.  Wide  and  rich  con- 
trasts do  indeed  call  forth  an  active  intelligence, 
and  increased  pleasure  attends  upon  this  enhanced 
energy.  But  the  revelation  of  contrast  as  a  legiti- 
mate and  genuine  form  of  the  intelligence  itself 
gives  pleasure  of  a  peculiar  kind  to  the  mind  that 
apprehends  it ;  and  this  peculiar  pleasure  is  but  in- 
tensified and  enriched  by  the  rich  and  wide  contrast 
A  large  orange  is  sweet  not  because  its  size  prolongs 
or  magnifies  the  gratification  of  the  palate  or  more 
engrosses  the  taste  than  a  small  one  ;  it  has  inde- 
pendently of  its  size  the  quality  of  sweetness, 
which  increased  size  only  intensifies  and  augments. 

§  71.  Comprehended  under  the  beauty 
or  Proportion.  of  harmony  in  its  wider  scope  is  the 

beauty  of  Proportion.  This  is  a  har- 
mony of  a  whole  with  any  of  its  parts.  An  edifice 
has  this  kind  of  beauty,  is  beautiful  in  its  propor- 
tions, when  for  example,  the  hight  is  in  harmony 
with  the  building  in  respect  to  the  other  dimensions, 
and  each  member  is  in  harmony  with  the  whole. 
So  extensive  does  this  kind  of  beauty  reign  in 
architecture  that  some  writers  have  been  led  to 
regard  it  as  the  one  only  kind  which  this  art  need 
respect. 


76  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

§  72.  Akin  to  this  beauty  of  propor- 
or Symmetry.  tion  is  the  beauty  of  Symmetry,  which 
is  founded  more  immediately  on  the 
relation  of  the  parts  to  one  another,  while  propor- 
tion looks  more  directly  to  the  relation  between  the 
parts  and  the  whole. 

Proportion  and  symmetry  are  both  concerned  with 
quantity.  Proportion  may  be  exactly  defined  as  the 
harmony  of  quantity  as  seen  in  the  relations  of  any 
part  to  its  whole  ;  and  symmetry  as  the  harmony  of 
quantity  as  seen  in  the  relations  of  one  part  to 
another. 

We  have,  besides,  those  species  of  the  beauty  of 
harmony  which  are  not  included  under  proportion 
and  symmetry,  for  which  however  language  has 
provided  no  particular  names.  Thus  we  have  the 
beauty  arising  from  the  harmony  of  color,  of  tone, 
and  the  like. 

§  73.  Still  further  under  this  general 
Numberhetic  kind  of  beauty  is  that  of  aesthetic  num- 
ber— called  Eurarithmy.  It  is  a  species 
of  beauty  which  is  relative  to  the  contemplating 
mind.  The  human  mind  can  easily  take  in  but  a 
limited  number  of  parts, — of  members,  of  features, 
of  hues,  of  sounds.  It  is  offended  by  excessive  multi- 
plicity, by  a  manifoldness  which  it  finds  difficulty  in 
gathering  up  into  a  whole,  and  in  comprehending  as 
one.  An  infinite  mind  might  comprehend  an  infin- 
ity of  objects  or  features  ;  a  finite  mind,  only  a  few. 
And  as  form  is  for  mind  as  well  as  of  mind,  the 
number  of  parts  must  be  limited  to  the  capacity  of 
the  contemplating  mind,  in  order  that  the  form  may 
be  perfect. 


IDEAL    BEAUTY.  77 

§  74.    The  other  form  of  the  intelligence 

Generic,  Cathol-      !  ,    .        -  ,.    ,  .  ,. 

k,  or  Typical  indicated  is  that  01  thought  or  mediate 
cognition.  It  is  the  proper  positive 
function  of  this  faculty  to  recognize  the  agreement 
or  identity  between  substance  and  its  attribute, 
and  under  this  recognized  identity  in  the  objects 
presented  to  it  to  unite  them  together  and  so  to 
construct  classes,  or  to  generalize.  In  exact  corres- 
pondence to  this  function  of  the  human  intelligence 
the  universe  around  us  is  made  up  of  objects  that 
resemble  one  another  ;  that  have,  in  other  words, 
identical  attributes.  There  is  in  the  boundless 
diversity  an  ever  prevalent  sameness — a  true  type- 
form  after  which  all  things  are  made.  The  infinite 
thought  appears  thus  everywhere  ;  and  it  is  because 
of  this  thought  shaping  all  objects  that  they  can  be 
thought  by  us ;  that  they  can  be  gathered  into 
classes. 

On  this  identifying  and  unifying  form  of  the  in- 
telligence, we  have  founded  certain  kinds  of  beauty 
which  have  been  recognized  in  our  literature.  We 
find  there  what  is  termed  genetic  beauty,  specific 
beauty,  ideal  beauty — the  term  ideal  being  used 
here  in  the  old  Platonic  sense  of  generic.  These 
terms  all  point  to  this  one  original  notion — that 
there  is  in  the  universe  of  being  the  ground  of  dis- 
tinguishing what  is  common  to  many,  in  other 
words,  of  the  generic  ;  that  there  is  a  common  type 
of  things  which  is  but  the  expression  of  the  crea- 
tive thought  Just  so  far  as  this  attribute  is  recog- 
nized, there  is  idea  revealed  which  gives  beauty  of 
a  peculiar  kind.  So  the  monstrous  is  but  another 


7#  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

name  for  the  ugly — the  contradictory  of  beautiful. 
It  is  on  the  foundation  of  this  broad  principle  that 
the  law  of  productive  art  is  based,  which  requires 
that  not  the  individual,  but  the  specific  be  preferred. 
Whatever  straggles  off  in  art  to  the  individual,  the 
peculiar,  shows  the  want  of  controlling  thought ; 
indicates  imperfection  in  the  idea.  Sir  Joshua  Rey- 
nolds thus  observes  with  his  characteristic  sound- 
ness of  judgment : — "There  is  an  absolute  necessity 
for  the  painter  to  generalize  his  notions  ;  to  paint 
particulars  is  not  to  paint  nature  ;  it  is  only  to  paint 
circumstances." 

This  kind  of  beauty  may  appropriately  be  denom- 
inated either  generic  or  catholic  or  typical  beauty. 
The  two  first  terms  point  at  once  to  that  attribute 
of  universal  or  generic, — of  class, — which  charac- 
terizes all  the  movements  of  a  perfect  infinite  intel- 
ligence ;  the  other  term  points  to  that  oneness  of 
form  which  the  one  source  of  all  being  has  given  to 
all  creation.  The  three  terms,  it  should  be  re- 
marked, have  been  used  in  other  relations  and  with 
other  meanings. 

§  75.   The  extent   and   importance  of 

Recognized  in  er-  ' 

roneous  theories    these   properties   of   beauty   are  sum- 

of  Beauty.  ' 

ciently  evinced  by  the  fact  that  in  vari- 
ously modified  forms  they  have  been  ranked  by  some 
of  the  writers  on  beauty  as  the  essential,  character- 
istic properties  of  beauty,  and  the  kinds  of  beauty 
founded  upon  them  as  comprehensive  of  all  beauty. 

That  theory  of  beauty,  thus,  which  re- 
Theory  of  utility,  solves  it  into  the  revelation  of  the 

useful,  limits  all  beauty  to  the  mere  re- 


IDEAL    BEAUTY.  79 

lation  of  external  propriety,  or  fitness  of  objects 
to  result  in  good.  It  is  true  that  this  revelation  of 
idea  is  proper  beauty.  The  reasoning  of  Burke  in 
which  he  seeks  to  show  that  beauty  does  not  con- 
sist in  utility,  fails  from  the  fallacy  common  to  most 
theorists  in  this  field  of  science  ; — of  mistaking  the 
part  for  the  whole.  Because  utility  is  not  the  ex- 
clusive ground  of  beauty,  therefore,  he  concludes  it 
is  no  ground  at  all.  This  is  the  principle  of  his 
fallacious  reasoning, — appearing  openly  and  in  form, 
and  also  disguised  in  his  denial  that  there  is  any 
beauty  at  all  in  the  presence  of  a  higher  beauty, — 
the  old  form  of  the  fallacy  which  we  detected  in 
Plato  who  made  the  beautiful  maiden  instantly 
become  ugly  in  the  presence  of  the  spirit  of  heaven. 
The  relation  of  utility,  of  means  to  end,  is  a 
proper  idea  of  beauty  ;  which  when  revealed  to  us 
in  proper  form  ever  introduces  us  into  the  proper 
experience  of  beauty  ;  but  is  far  from  being  the 
only  principle  of  beauty,  as  some  have  maintained. 

§  76.  There  is  another  class  of  theo- 
°et^n'ty  m  Va~  rists  who  make  the  universal  principle 

of  beauty  to  be  but  that  of  unity  in 
variety.  If  we  could  be  allowed  to  engraft  the  ad- 
mission of  an  objective  beauty  upon  the  theory  of 
Kant  and  of  Hamilton  before  mentioned,  this  logi- 
cally would  be  the  true  principle  of  beauty  under 
that  theory.  For  if  beauty  subjectively, — beauty 
in  experience,  be  but  the  free  and  vigorous  exercise 
of  the  understanding,  the  merely  aggregative  fac- 
ulty, its  object  can  be  only  that  of  diversified  unity. 
As  in  the  case  of  the  theory  of  utility,  this  theory 


8O  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

can  substantiate  its  claim  only  to  a  partial  validity. 
The  revelation  of  the  manifold  and  diverse  in  the 
one  is  a  revelation  of  intelligence — of  an  idea;  it  is, 
wherever  apprehended,  beautiful.  It  is,  however, 
only  a  single  form  of  beauty. 

§  77.  Still  another  class  of  theorists 
Proportion.  and  would  resolve  all  beauty  into  order  and 

proportion.  Substantially  the  same 
criticism  is  to  be  passed  upon  this  as  upon  the 
other  theories  just  noticed.  Mind,  as  essentially 
intelligent  in  all  its  manifestations,  must  evince 
more  or  less  prominently  this  essential  attribute. 
We  must  at  once  pronounce  that  to  be  a  monstros- 
ity of  mental  revelation,  which  contradicts  the  es- 
sential principles  of  intelligence  and  belies  its 
characteristic  nature.  All  intelligence  must  be  in 
order  and  proportion,  so  far  as  it  is  intelligence  ;  for 
order  and  proportion  are  but  expressions  for  those 
necessary  relations  in  space  and  time  in  which  all 
intelligence  must  apprehend  its  objects.  Order  is 
but  the  relation  in  space  of  the  directions  of  the 
parts  of  a  single  whole  relatively  to  each  other,  or 
the  relation  in  time  of  the  succession  of  those  parts. 
And  proportion,  in  the  larger  sense  as  including 
symmetry,  is  the  relation  in  space  of  comparative 
magnitude  of  parts  and  in  time  of  importance  of 
parts.  These  are  the  two  comprehensive  relations 
in  each  of  those  fundamental  and  universal  forms 
of  all  intelligence — space  and  time.  If,  then,  the 
intelligence  must  apprehend  its  objects  in  these  re- 
lations, then  the  objects  must  in  their  nature  be 
susceptible  of  being  apprehended  in  these  relations. 


IDEAL    BEAUTY.  8 1 

The  world  without  must  correspond  to  the  mind 
within,  or  it  cannot  come  into  its  apprehension. 

We  cannot  then  exclude  order  and  proportion 
from  the  domain  of  objective  beauty.  They  are  real 
principles  of  beauty ;  but  they  are  not  exclusive 
principles  of  beauty,  for  they  are  not  the  only  attri- 
butes of  mind  that  can  be  revealed  in  appropriate 
matter. 

§  78.    The  second  kind  of  Beauty  given 
Be'auty.motlve    in  a  division  founded  on  its  idea  or 
content  is  that  in  which  the  spirit  is  re- 
vealed prominently  and  characteristically  as  feeling. 
We  may  term  it  Emotive  Beauty. 

While  feeling  as  attribute  of  the  same  single 
spirit  must  more  or  less  accompany  all  forms  of  the 
intelligence,  yet  it  often  rises  to  a  controlling  ele- 
ment in  the  revelations  of  spirit,  and  gives  character 
to  them.  Thus  it  is  in  ordinary  life.  We  charac- 
terize a  man  as  in  a  mood  of  passion  ;  although  it 
may  be,  we  discern  the  passion  only  in  actions  that 
receive  their  direction  immediately  from  the  intelli- 
gence. So  too  in  discourse,  we  characterize  cer- 
tain discourse  as  passionate  although  appearing  in 
words  which  are  in  themselves  only  the  forms  of 
thought.  Passion  reveals  itself  through  the  thought 
and  then  through  the  word  ;  but  as  it  rules  and 
becomes  the  predominant,  characteristic  element,  it 
determines  the  discourse  as  passionate.  There  is 
thus  in  strict  propriety  and  truth,  an  emotive,  in 
distinction  from  an  intellectual  beauty.  We  cannot 
steadily  and  fully  contemplate  the  rainbow  in  its 
glowing  brightness  and  the  delicate  blending  of  its 


82  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

hues,  reposing  on  the  bosom  of  a  dark  and  angry 
cloud  that  rolls  its  deep  thunders  within  and  darts 
out  its  wrathful  flashes,  without  recognizing  certain 
feelings  as  really  expressed,  as  present  and  revealed. 
We  see  wrath  assuaged,  and  passing  into  love  and 
kindness.  So  in  the  revelation  of  nature  every- 
where we  discern  the  features  of  a  feeling  soul  re- 
vealed. 

Its  specific  modifications  it  would  be  difficult, 
from  the  present  imperfect  state  of  the  science  of  the 
Feelings,  intelligently  to  enumerate  with  scientific 
precision,  and  it  is  unnecessary.  We  distinguish,  it 
may  be  sufficient  here  to  observe,  an  emotive 
beauty  : — 

I.  In  the  mere  revelation  of  a  feeling-spirit,  of 
mere  sensibility  and  sympathy  ; 

II.  In  the  revelation  of  more  specific  forms  of 
rational  sentiment,  as  in  the  more  personal  forms  of 
joy  and  sorrow  exercised  in  respect  to  present  good 
or  evil,  or  of  hope  and  fear  in  respect  to  future  and 
possible  good  or  evil ;  or  in  the  relative  forms  of 
kindness,  'confidence,  and  reverence. 

While  intellectual  beauty  appears  more  appropri- 
ately in  the  spacial  or  exten^ve  relations  of  the  matter 
of  beauty ;  in  the  figure, — the  outline,  and  interiorly 
in  the  positions  and  proportions  of  the  constituent 
parts,  emotive  beauty,  on  the  other  hand,  appears 
more  in  the  intensive  relations — the  color,  the  tone 
of  the  object.  Its  distinctive  character  is  recog- 
nized in  language  that  speaks  of  a  form  of  beauty 
as  warm  and  glowing  or  the  contrary  ;  as  gladsome 
or  sombre  ;  as  tender  and  loving ;  or  that  charac- 
terizes beauty  by  its  tone. 


IDEAL    BEAUTY.  83 

§  79.  The  kind  of  beauty  as  deter- 
£  &S? Bcauty  mined  in  respect  to  the  idea,  is  that  in 
which  the  spirit  is  revealed  character- 
istically as  will. 

The  will,  in  its  normal  condition,  at  least,  is 
characterized  as  free.  Freedom  is  the  peculiar,  the 
exclusive  attribute  of  will.  Its  proper  definition, 
thus,  is  the  free  activity  of  rational  being. 

The  revelation  of  this  principle  constitutes  that 
specific  kind  of  beauty  which  is  familiarly  denomi- 
nated grace.  The  distinction  between  this  and  the 
other  kinds  of  beauty  indicated  is  fully  recognized 
in  ordinary  language.  We  never  predicate  grace- 
fulness except  of  motion,  or  of  repose  the  result  of 
motion,  for  here  as  elsewhere  we  find  an  active  and 
a  resulting  beauty  ;  nor  of  any  motion  except  as  in 
appearance  free.  But  will  in  expression — will  re- 
vealed, is  free  motion. 

If  in  nature,  which  in  its  very  nature  seems  to 
exclude  freedom  and  admits  only  the  stern  sway  of 
necessity,  we  sometimes  alight  upon  what  we  des- 
ignate as  graceful,  we  are  ever  forced  to  interpret 
the  appearance  as  a  revelation  of  grace.  The  poet's 
nice  sense  so  reads  such  natural  objects.  The 
graceful  rivulet,  Wordsworth  at  once  apprehends  as 
"  winding  by  his  own  sweet  will."  And  Thompson 
in  his  "  Castle  of  Indolence"  exemplifies  his  charac- 
teristic delicacy  and  accuracy  in  his  interpretation 
of  nature  when  he  tells  us  of  "  free  nature's  grace." 
Nature  is  in  no  sense  more  a  bond-slave  of  neces- 
sity, than  she  is  blind  and  unfeeling.  She  is  sage, 
she  is  loving,  she  is  free,  because  there  is  a  spirit 


84  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

breathing  in  her.  God  reveals  himself  in  all  her 
forms ;  and  speaks  in  all  her  utterances.  Therefore 
is  the  face  of  nature  beautiful ;  her  voices,  music  ; 
and  her  various  movements  decked  with  grace.  It 
is  characteristically  when  nature  appears  but  mat- 
ter, inert  as  inertia  itself,  that  she  is  stiff,  ungrace- 
ful in  her  motion.  When  the  creating  or  revealing 
spirit  shapes  her  features,  or  sends  out  an  animating 
glow  into  her  countenance,  or  freely  bends  her 
inert  limbs,  then  is  she  beautiful. 

§  80.  The  first  division  of  Beauty,  then , 
Recapitulation,  distributed  into  its  specific  kinds  in 

reference  to  the  idea  revealed  in  it, 
gives  us  those — 

I.  Of  Intellectual  Beauty,  with  its  subordinate 
forms  of  Truthfulness,  Fitness,  and  Catholicity ; 

II.  Of  Emotive  Beauty  ;  and 

III.  Of  Free  Beauty  or  Grace..   , 


MATERIAL  BEAUTY.  85 


CHAPTER  IV. 

MATERIAL     BEAUTY. 

§  81.  Proceeding  now  to  the  distribu- 
feMiij"  tion  of  Beauty  in  reference  to  its  sec- 
ond element — the  matter  in  which  the 
idea  is  revealed,— we  shall  find  the  natural  prin- 
ciple of  division  in  the  closer  or  remoter  affinity 
of  the  matter  to  the  idea. 

Beginning,  on  this  principle,  with  the  matter  most 
remote  in  its  nature  from  idea,  the  most  hetero- 
geneous, we  place  at  the  first  and  lowest  stage, 
the  polar  opposite  of  spirit,  pure  inorganic  matter. 
Wherever  spirit  enters  matter,  revealing  itself 
through  it,  beauty  appears.  Matter,  before  form- 
less, now  is  formed,  and  reveals  beauty.  There  is, 
thus,  a  true  inorganic  beauty  rising  in  specific  grades 
of  perfection,  from  the  lowest  rank  of  well-nigh 
chaotic  matter  —  orderless,  colorless,  motionless 
mass,  to  the  highest  orders  of  inorganic  beauty  in 
the  regular  forms  of  the  crystal,  the  soft  brilliancy 
of  the  rainbow,  the  graceful  motions  of  wave,  or 
stream,  or  curling  vapor. 

There  is  beauty  in  water,  earth,  and  sky,  pecu- 
liar to  each  great  element ;  and  each  of  these  gen- 
eral forms  is  specifically  characterized  by  the  idea 
revealed.  There  is  beauty,  thus,  for  a  single  illus- 


86 


KINDS    OF    SEAUTr. 


tration  or  two,  in  ocean — in  its  limitless  expanse, 
imaging  the  infinity  of  the  creating  spirit,  in  its 
purity  of  hue  as  it  deepens  from  the  bright  green 
of  its  face  where  it  nears  the  habitations  of  men  on 
solid  earth  to  the  deep  azure  of  its  distant,  fathom- 
less depths,  reflecting  the  pure  heart  and  profound 
affection  of  the  God  of  heaven  above  it ;  in  the  easy 
sweep  of  its  billowing  waves-  also,  and  the  gentle 
roundings  of  its  shores.  There  is  beauty,  too,  in 
earth,  in  the  regular  strata  of  its  mass  beneath,  in 
the  majestic  piles  of  its  peaked  mountains,  in  the 
kindly  blended  hues  of  its  variegated  surface,  in 
the  mingled  wild  and  gentle  of  its  rock  and  hill 
and  vale  reposing  in  such  grace.  And  in  all  the 
smaller  distributions  of  these  various  masses  of 
inorganic  matter,  we  find  more  specific  forms  of 
beauty,  each  expressing  in  its  own  peculiar  way  the 
several  characters  of  the  diversified  idea. 

§  82.  As  we  pass  from  this  polar  op- 
Beauty.* ganic  posite  of  idea, — from  gross  matter,  we 

come  next  to  the  manifold  forms  of 
living  beauty,  and  first  to  its  lowest  grade  of  mere 
vegetable  life.  At  this  stage  we  find  matter,  in 
which  the  idea  may  incorporate  itself,  more  akin  to 
the  pure  nature  of  idea  itself.  We  are  now  out  of  the 
realm  of  gross  matter.  Yet  this  life  is  found  only 
in  matter  which  still  retains  its  original  capability 
of  embodying  spirit  and  admits,  accordingly,  all  the 
modes  of  beauty  which  could  before  be  shaped  in  it. 
But  as  it  is  pervaded  with  life,  we  recognize  a  new 
beauty — different  altogether  in  kind  and  higher  in 
degree.  The  masses  of  earth  put  on  a  new  charm 


IDEAL    BEAUTY.  8/ 

when  a  free  life  wreathes  its  towering  hights  with 
coronets  of  forest-green,  or  decks  its  quiet  vales  with 
wavy  grain  or  spreads  upon  them  its  tapestry  of 
foliage  and  flower.  Earth  comes  nearer  to  us,  en- 
ters deeper  into  the  spirit's  sympathies,  when  she 
robes  herself  in  forms  of  life,  even  in  her  more 
massive  shapes.  And  in  her  minuter  parts,  how  far 
above  the  beauty  of  mere  matter,  is  the  regularity 
and  fitness,  and  ideal  or  specific  harmony,  which 
vegetable  life  so  universally  evinces  ;  the  expressive 
depth  and  brilliancy  of  its  various  hues,  too,  their 
graceful  blending,  and  delicate  gradations,  showing 
everywhere  the  tracings  of  a  divine  pencil  ? 

§  83.   Another  step  in  the  gradations  of 
Kint?.en iieat    matter  for  the  revelation  of  idea  brings 

us  to  sentient  being.  As  we  enter  here 
we  at  once  become  sensible  of  an  introduction  to  a 
world  entirely  new.  As  a  medium  more  homoge- 
neous with  itself  than  vegetable  life,  the  idea  re- 
veals itself  here  in  altogether  new  and  incompara- 
bly richer,  more  perfect  forms,  and  comes  still 
closer  to  us  and  penetrates  into  deeper  sympathies 
of  our  spiritual  natures.  The  idea  itself,  as  finding 
a  medium  more  meet  for  its  uses,  puts  out  higher 
grades  of  its  own  activity.  If  there  be  intelligence 
revealed  in  the  regularity  of  the  snow-flake,  soul  in 
its  purity  and  softness,  and  freedom  in  its  easy, 
graceful  fall ;  if  these  same  attributes  of  spirit  ap- 
pear in  higher  forms  in  the  fitnesses,  the  sympa- 
thetic relationships,  and  the  graceful  luxuriance  of 
organic-life  ; — as,  for  instance,  if  in  the  modest  vio- 
let we  discover  a  higher  intelligence  in  the  harmo- 


88  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

nious  adaptations  of  its  various  parts  to  each  other 
and  to  all  the  demands  of  locality  and  of  season,  a 
higher  scale  of  sensibility  in  its  characteristic 
humility  and  love  of  retirement,  as  well  as  a  higher 
freedom  in  the  graceful  rounding  of  its  foliage  and 
the  delicate  blending  of  its  hues  than  in  any  of  the 
revelations  of  inorganic  matter  ;  yet  as  we  enter 
the  region  of  sentient  being,  still  richer,  more 
essential,  more  perfect  grades  of  the  ideal  meet 
us.  In  each  of  its  several  forms,  we  find  the  idea 
at  a  higher  point  of  perfection.  Thus,  for  instance, 
the  wisdom  of  design  in  the  adaptations  of  organic 
function  in  the  complicated  structure  of  the  lamb, 
the  innocence,  gentleness,  joyousness  of  its  sportive 
nature,  and  the  freedom  of  its  graceful  gambolings, 
are  of  a  higher  order  than  the  corresponding  forms 
of  the  idea  in  the  snow-flake  or  the  violet. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  moreover,  that  all  these  forms 
peculiar  to  sentient  being  are  embodied  in  those  of 
organic  life  as  these  again  are  enwrapped  in  the 
grosser  forms  of  inorganic  body. 

§  84.  One  step  higher  in  the  grada- 
^aufPiritual  tions  of  matter  introduces  us  into  the 
world  of  spiritual  being.  The  spirit 
has  forms.  In  a  true  sense,  every  particular  ex- 
ertion it  puts  forth  goes  out  in  a  form  determinate 
and  characteristic.  There  are  forms  of  intelligence, 
— forms  of  apprehending,  forms  of  identifying,  or  of 
classifying ;  there  are  forms  of  sensibility, — forms 
of  joy  and  sorrow,  of  hope  and  fear, — forms  of  rela- 
tive emotion, — of  kindness,  trust,  and  reverence  ; 
there  are  forms  in  which  free  power  goes  out  in 


IDEAL    BEAUTY.  89 

graceful  expression — forms  of  skill,  of  achievement. 
These  proper  spirit-forms  may  be  enwrapped  in 
forms  of  sentient  life,  as  these  in  mere  organic 
bodily  forms,  and  these  again  in  those  of  matter ; 
but  they  are  distinct,  peculiar ;  and  are  of  a  still 
higher  type  and  order.  The  divine  idea  reveals 
itself  in  these,  as  .in  matter  more  homogeneous  to 
its  own  nature,  in  higher  perfection  and  in  richer 
beauty.  We  obtain  a  deeper  insight  into  the  mind 
of  the  Infinite  through  these  forms  of  spiritual  reve- 
lation than  through  the  lower.  So  too,  in  art,  the 
ideal  form  of  the  artist  by  far  outstrips  in  perfect- 
ness  and  beauty  the  outward  sensible  form  in  which 
he  enshrines  it.  We  possess  ourselves,  moreover, 
of  his  full  and  exact  idea  in  the  revelation,  only  as 
we  separate  this  ideal  form — this  spirit  form  in  which 
it  is  embodied — from  the  grosser,  more  external 
forms  of  matter. 

The  artist  ever,  in  all  departments  of  art,  has 
what  we  justly  term  his  ideal  which  in  the  consumma- 
tion of  his  art  he  is  to  embody  in  forms  perhaps  of 
mere  physical  sense.  He  necessarily  begins  with 
this  ideal.  It  has  a  distinct,  real  existence  in  his 
imagination,  shaped  out,  determined  in  form  and 
feature,  before  he  touches  pencil,  or  chisel.  This 
ideal  may  be  improved,  may  be  perfected,  as  he  pro- 
ceeds to  incorporate  in  those  sensible  forms  of  mar- 
ble, or  of  the  canvas  ;  but  it  exists  first  necessarily 
in  his  own  mind  in  a  true  actual  form.  The  melo- 
dies and  harmonies  of  a  musical  composition  all 
form  themselves  in  the  composer's  mind  before  he 
ever  gives  visible  representation  to  them  in  his 


9O  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

written  staff,  and  in  the  various  signs  or  symbols  of 
musical  notation.  The  last  stage  of  the  full  realiza- 
tion of  his  ideal  in  actual  sound  follows  as  an  en- 
tirely separate,  independent  exertion  of  artistic 
skill.  The  composer  may  be  dumb  himself,  and 
deaf  even  ;  none  the  less  the  true  spirit  of  beauty 
arrayed  in  perfect  dress  walks  before  his  internal 
eye,  distinct,  impressive,  ravishing  mind  and  heart 
as  he  moves  along  over  these  mute  forms  of  ink  and 
paper.  This  ideal  itself  is  a  form  of  beauty,  as  it 
reveals  the  mind  and  spirit  of  the  artist.  We  ad- 
mire thus  the  grandeur  of  thought  and  soul  which 
Michael  Angelo  reveals  in  all  his  ideals  whether 
they  are  to  be  wrought  out  in  sculpture,  or  in  fresco 
or  in  architecture.  There  is  this  style  of  beauty  in 
his  mere  ideals. 

The  process  in  art-interpretation  is  the  exact 
counterpart  of  this.  The  gross  matter,  through 
which  alone,  at  least  in  our  present  condition  of 
being,  we  can  be  introduced  to  idea,  to  spirit  exter- 
nal to  us, — the  gross  matter  is  first  presented  to  us. 
We  may  discern  in  this  certain  forms  of  the  re- 
vealed idea.  Mere  outline  and  color  may  reveal 
such  modes  of  the  idea  as  may  be  embodied  in 
gross  matter.  Regularity  of  contour,  warmth  of 
hue,  delicate  curving  and  color-blending,  reveals 
the  spiritual  principles  of  intelligence,  affection,  and 
freedom.  The  child  is  captivated  with  these  lowest 
forms  of  art.  But  through  these  outer  forms,  in  a 
landscape,  the  artist  may  in  the  character  of  his 
trees  and  his  foliage  reveal  his  idea  in  fuller  degree 
and  correspondingly  richer  beauty.  With  admira- 


MATERIAL    BEAUTY.  9! 

ble  art  have  two  American  painters,  Cole  and  his 
pupil  Church,  revealed  moral  ideas  in  the  forms  of 
mere  landscape — of  vegetable  life.  A  true  interpre- 
tation of  these  products  of  art  must  seize  in  addition 
to  the  inorganic  the  living  forms  also.  The  Flemish 
school  of  painters,  further,  has  characterized  itself 
by  incorporating  in  these  outer  forms  of  organic 
and  of  inorganic  being,  also  forms  of  sentient  life. 
The  range  of  ideas,  suited  to  this  medium  of  rep- 
resentation, are  in  some  respects  of  a  higher  order 
than  the  other.  But  what  we  have  here  to  remark 
is  that  they  are  not  material ;  that  they  are  separa- 
ble from  all  the  material  forms  although  appre- 
hended through  them,  being  revealed  in  them.  In 
the  schools  of  Italian  art,  we  meet  a  higher  rank  of 
forms  in  their  master-pieces  of  historical  painting. 
In  the  multiform  modes  of  rational  life,  themselves 
incorporated  in  forms  of  irrational  as  mere  sentient, 
organic,  and  inorganic  being,  we  recognize  an  en- 
tirely new  medium  of  revelation.  We  cannot  begin 
to  interpret  these  magnificent  achievements  of  art 
except  as  we  seize  the  spirit-forms  in  which  the 
artist  reveals  his  idea.  How  is  it  possible,  thus,  to 
attain  the  lowest  degree  of  any  proper  interpreta- 
tion of  Raphael's  Madonna  della  sedia,  without  a 
distinct  apprehension  of  the  mother's  placid  fond- 
ness, the  purity  and  elevation  of  her  child,  and  the 
reverence  of  the  infant  John,  and  the  other  forms  of 
rational  sentiment  which  glow  in  this  revelation  ? 
True  art-interpretation  proceeds  thus  up  through 
the  grosser  to  the  last  and  inmost,  the  proper  spirit- 
forms. 


92  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

§  85.  There  are  to  be  recognized  then  these  four 
grades  of  aesthetic  matter  in  which  idea  may  be 
revealed  :  i .  gross  inert  matter  ;  2.  vegetable  life  ; 
3.  sentient  life  ;  4.  rational  life. 

The  inner  grade  may  be  embodied  moreover  in 
the  outer, — the  ideal  in  the  proper  animal,  this  in 
vegetable  life,  and  all  in  gross  inert  matter.  Now 
in  order  to  a  division  of  the  kinds  of  beauty  in  ref- 
erence to  these  different  grades  of  matter,  it  becomes 
important  in  view  of  this  incorporation  of  the  inner 
in  the  outer,  to  determine  which  of  the  grades  is  to 
be  selected  as  containing  the  proper  embodiment  of 
the  idea.  This  is  especially  necessary  in  the  dis- 
tribution of  the  products  of  art  to  their  proper 
classes.  It  will  not  do,  as  has  sometimes  been 
done,  to  distribute  such  objects  in  reference  always 
to  the  outermost  matter  in  which  it  appears.  Lit- 
erature and  architecture  both  reveal  their  products 
in  visible  outlines.  But  while  visible  figure  traced 
in  gross  matter  is  the  proper  embodiment  of  the 
latter,  and  consequently  the  beauty  of  the  building 
is  to  be  apprehended  in  this  outline,  the  beauty  of 
a  discourse  or  a  poem  is  not  characteristically  in  the 
printed  page  which  reveals  it  to  us.  In  criticising 
the  one,  this  visible  outline  is  an  essential  element 
to  be  regarded  ;  in  criticising  the  other,  it  is  wholly 
excluded  from  view.  The  proper  matter  in  which 
poetry  reveals  itself  is  first  and  chiefly  in  the  ideal ; 
then  in  language  which  itself  reaches  the  contem- 
plating mind  only  through  the  letters  of  the  printed 
page.  We  are  led  thus  to  distinguish  two  leading 
kinds  of  beauty  according  as  they  are  characteris- 


MATERIAL    BEAUTY.  93 

tically  revealed  immediately  or  mediately,  in  the 
matter  in  which  they  finally  embody  themselves. 
We  have  forms  of  beauty  revealed  immediately  in 
sensible  matter,  as  architecture,  and  music.  We 
have  other  forms  which  do  not  characteristically 
reveal  their  true  nature  to  the  mere  outer  sense. 

§  86.  We  here  encounter  another  dif- 
iSn1Syddiessed  ficulty  that  of  determining  the  senses 

immediately  addressed  by  beauty. 
There  is  far  from  agreement  in  regard  to  this 
among  our  leading  writers  on  taste.  Lord  Kames 
expressly  limits  beauty  to  the  sense  of  sight. 

" The  term  beauty"  he  says,  " in  its 
|7m4.  °f  Lord  native  signification,  is  appropriated  to 

objects  of  sight :  objects  of  the  other 
senses  may  be  agreeable,  such  as  the  sounds  of 
musical  instruments,  the  smoothness  and  softness 
of  some  surfaces ;  but  the  agreeableness  denomi- 
nated beauty,  belongs  to  objects  of  sight."*  In 
another  place,  he  extends  to  sounds  the  power  of 
raising  passion  or  emotion,  but  declares  that  "  the 
most  pleasing  feelings  of  taste,  or  touch,  or  smell, 
aspire  not  to  that  honor."f 

The  literature  of  art,  however,  has  more  gener- 
ally admitted  the  sense  of  hearing  to  share  with  that 
of  seeing  in  the  high  honor  of  receiving  the  ad- 
dresses of  beauty.  It  has  excluded  from  this  rank 
the  three  other  senses  ;  and  denied  to  them  any 
susceptibility  to  the  impression  of  beauty,  any  ca- 


*  Elements  of  Criticism  :  chap.  3. 
t  Id.  chap.  2. 


94  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

pacity  as  organs  to  convey  beauty  to  the  contem- 
plating mind. 

The  question  at  once  confronts  us  :  is  this  a  well 
grounded  distinction  between  the  senses  as  organs 
of  beauty  ?  What  in  the  nature  of  the  case  forbids 
the  revelation  of  idea  in  any  of  the  qualities  of  mat- 
ter, to  any  of  the  senses  which  matter  as  formed 
can  impress  ?  Certainly,  unless  there  can  be  indi- 
cated some  positive  ground  for  rejecting  the  three 
lower  senses  from  this  relationship  to  beauty,  we 
are  prohibited  from  doing  it  by  the  consideration  of 
their  all  partaking  in  the  common,  essential  prop- 
erty of  sense — that  of  being  the  medium  of  com- 
munication between  the  mind  as  subject  and  ex- 
ternal being  as  object.  If  beauty,  indeed,  be  essen- 
tially revelation  of  idea  in  matter,  then,  no  sense 
through  which  such  revelation  can  be  made,  can  on 
any  a  priori  ground  be  excluded  from  the  function 
proper  to  sense. 

Still  less  do  we  find,  in  fact,  reason  for  this  restric- 
tion of  the  admission  of  objects  of  beauty  to  two 
of  the  senses.  The  divine  idea  is  most  impressively 
revealed  to  us  in  the  forms  of  fragrance  and  of 
savor.  How  much  of  the  beauty  of  nature  is  asso- 
ciated in  our  minds  with  the  sweetness  of  its  fruits 
and  the  perfume  of  its  flowers  ?  Rob  our  imaginings 
of  Paradise  of  these  forms,  and  how  large  a  share 
of  its  beauty  is  taken  from  them  ? 

But  as  incorporated  in  other  forms,  we  find  the 
objects  of  these  senses  entering  largely  into  the 
revelations  of  beauty.  Our  richest  poetry  abounds 
in  them.  It  were  a  work  of  supererogation  to  cite 


MATERIAL   BEAUTY.  95 

instance  or  proof  either  of  the  fact  or  the  extent.of 
this  use  of  the  three  lower  senses  in  literature. 

Strange,  indeed,  is  it  that  aesthetic  science  should 
disown  a  sense,  from  which  she  has  derived  her 
maiden  name  and  from  whose  stores  she  has  taken  her 
most  familiar,  her  every-day  attire ;  in  whose  livery, 
indeed,  she  is  chiefly  recognized  as  an  acquaintance 
or  treated  with  favor  or  respect.  How  has  it  come 
about  that,  in  all  languages,  beauty  has  introduced 
herself  ever  under  the  array  of  taste ;  borrowing 
from  that  sense  all  her  terms  and  means  of  intro- 
duction to  the  human  mind,  if  taste  and  beauty  be 
utterly  alien  from  each  other ;  if  the  domain  of 
taste  be  entirely  foreign  to  the  nature  of  beauty  ?  i 
§  87.  Still  more  unaccountable  is  it  that  some 
philosophers  should  have  made  a  quality  that  ad- 
dresses only  the  lowest  of  the  three  rejected  senses 
— smoothness — an  indispensable  requisite  to  beauty, 
if  these  senses  lie  wholly  out  of  the  domain  of 
beauty. 

Burke,  in  his  essay  on  the  Sublime 
of  Burke.  and  Beautiful*  speaks  of  smoothness  as 

"  a  quality  so  essential  to  beauty,  that," 
he  says,  "  I  do  not  now  recollect  any  thing  beauti- 
ful that  is  not  smooth.  In  trees  and  flowers, 
smooth  leaves  are  beautiful ;  smooth  slopes  of  earth 
or  gardens ;  smooth  streams  in  the  landscape ; 
smooth  coats  of  birds  and  beasts  in  animal  beau- 
ties ;  in  fine  women,  smooth  skins ;  and  in  several 
sorts  of  ornamental  furniture,  smooth  and  polished 


*  Part  III.  Section  xiv. 


96 


KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 


surfaces.  A  very  considerable  part  of  the  effect  of 
beauty  is  owing  to  this  quality ;  indeed,  the  most 
considerable."  And  in  another  part  of  his  essay, 
he  accounts  for  this  prevalence  of  smoothness  in 
the  effect  of  beauty,  in  the  light  of  his  own  theory, 
that  smoothness  in  bodies  is  a  peculiarly  relaxing 
quality.* 

In  like  manner,  he  calls  "  sweetness  the  beautiful 
of  the  taste."  f 

§  89.  Yet  in  Germany  and  France,  as 
French™*™'1  well  as  in  England,  we  find  this  view 

prevailing,  that  but  two  senses  have 
any  part  in  beauty.  Vischer,  a  recent  voluminous 
writer  on  Esthetics,  discards  peremptorily  touch, 
taste,  and  smell ;  from  them,  he  says,  "  beauty  is 
excluded."  $  And  Cousin  in  his  "  Lectures  on  the 
True,  the  Beautiful,  and  the  Good,"  oracularly  pro- 
nounces :  "  of  the  five  senses  which  man  is  endowed 
with,  smell,  taste,  and  touch  are  incapable  of  trans- 
mitting the  beautiful  to  us."  "  Taste,  for  instance, 
appreciates  the  agreeable  and  not  the  beautiful ;  it 
is  the  servant  of  interest,  of  the  stomach  ;  and  all 
those  senses  which  do  not  judge  in  a  disinterested 
manner,  cannot  judge  the  beautiful.  Scent  is  a 
little  less  at  the  service  of  the  body,  but  by  itself 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  idea  of  beauty ;  one 
never  thinks  of  saying  that  a  scent  has  any  beauty 
in  it."  "  So  of  touch,  also,  which  judges  only  of 

*  2d.     Part  IV.  Sect.  xx. 
f  3d.     Part  IV.  Sect.  xxii. 

\  See  Review  of  Vischer's  Esthetics,  Bib.  Sac.  for  1859  I  V°L 
xvi,  p.  473. 


MATERIAL    BEAUTY.  9/ 

hardness  and  softness ;  in  both  of  these  there  is 
neither  beauty  nor  ugliness."  "  There  remain  only 
two  senses  which  can  discern  the  beautiful, — sight 
and  hearing." 

On  the  other  hand,  we  find  Schelling  formally  ad- 
mitting tastes  and  scents  into  the  domain  of  beauty. 
§  89.  Can  we  account  for  this  exten- 
Source  of  error,  sive  prevalence  of  the  opinion  which 
excludes  the  lower  senses  as  organs  of 
aesthetic  impression  ?  In  the  first  place,  very  much 
of  this  restrictiveness  as  to  the  organs  of  beautiful 
impressions  may  be  attributed  to  imperfect  and 
hence  erroneous  theories  of  beauty.  These  theories 
have  failed  generally  to  draw  the  line  definitely 
between  sensation  and  emotion — between  feeling 
as  bodily  affection  and  feeling  as  pure  spiritual 
affection.  That  beauty  is  object  for  a  feeling, 
higher,  purer  than  sensation,  they  could  not  but 
admit ;  while  yet  having  but  vague  notion  of  the 
true  nature  of  feeling  or  accepting  the  rude  and 
false  notion  of  it,  that  feeling  is  but  pleasure  or 
pain,  they  readily  resorted  to  the  expedient  of 
severing  the  senses  into  two  classes,  one,  as  they 
supposed,  giving  ideas,  the  other  only  sensations, 
and  so  excluded  the  lower  senses  from  all  part  in 
beauty,  retaining  the  two  higher,  as  if  this  resource 
would  extricate  them  from  the  difficulty.  The 
whole  ground  of  the  exclusion  is  removed  with  a 
correct  philosophy  of  the  feelings. 

§  90.  There  is,  further,  it  is  to  be  re- 
marked,  a  true  distinction  in  the  senses 
in  their  relation  as  organs  to  beauty. 


98  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

It  is,  however,  a  distinction  in  degree  not  in  kind, 
and  therefore  does  not  justify  this  separation  of  the 
senses  into  two  classes,  the  one  class  being  organs 
of  beauty,  the  other  not.  The  true  character  of 
this  distinction  may  be  clearly  indicated  in  the 
light  of  our  theory  of  beauty  as  a  revelation.  A 
revelation  implies  a  revealer  and  a  mind  to  which 
the  revelation  is  made.  These  terms  are  in  a 
revelation  directly  opposed, — placed  over  against 
each  other.  The  more  decided  this  opposition  the 
more  perfect  the  revelation.  Just  so  far  as  a  revela- 
tion becomes  mingled  with  our  own  spontaneous 
activity,  it  loses  in  power,  in  effect,  in  its  essential 
character.  In  a  perfect  revelation  the  idea  revealed 
must  stand  out  in  distinct  and  bold  relief,  in  clear 
opposition  to  the  contemplating  mind.  And  the 
more  objective  the  idea  appears  to  us  in  the  revela- 
tion, the  more  perfect  the  revelation. 

Now  the  five  senses  stand  in  a  clearly  recogniza- 
ble relation  to  each  other  in  respect  of  the  degree  of 
objectiveness  in  which  they  introduce  material 
bodies  to  us.  The  sense  of  sight  reveals  to  us  ob- 
jects most  distant,  most  remote  from  us.  The  im- 
pressions on  the  nerves  of  sight  can  hardly  ever  be 
confounded  with  merely  subjective  experiences 
Revelations  of  idea  to  this  sense  are  in  the  highest 
degree  objective,  and  are  consequently  the  most 
perfect.  Of  all  the  material  forms  in  which  beauty 
is  revealed,  accordingly,  those  that  address  the 
sight,  visible  objects  of  beauty,  are  of  the  highest 
rank  and  character. 

Next  in  rank  is  the  sense  of  hearing  which  gives 


MATERIAL    BEAUTY.  99 

us  distant  objects,  but  less  remote  than  those  which 
sight  may  give.  There  is  but  little  more  difficulty, 
however,  here  in  discriminating  the  external  object 
that  is  presented  to  us  from  our  own  self-moved 
changes  of  experience,  than  in  the  case  of  sight. 
The  two  senses  rank  nearly  together  ;  at  least  the 
difference  in  regard  to  the  degree  of  objectiveness 
with  which  the  object  is  given  us  is  far  less  than 
between  the  sense  of  hearing  and  any  of  the  lower 
senses.  It  is  this  wider  separation  between  the 
two  higher  and  the  three  lower  senses  which  has 
probably  suggested  the  thought  that  the  latter  are 
by  their  own  nature  insusceptible  of  beauty.  It  is 
obvious  however,  that  the  distinction  is  merely  one 
of  degree  ;  and  the  gradation  we  can  easily  trace 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest ; — the  three  lowest 
ranking  in  the  order,  first,  the  smell,  then,  the  taste, 
and  last  of  all,  the  touch  ;  as  sight  decidedly  out- 
ranks hearing  in  this  particular. 

If  we  take  into  consideration,  further,  the  fact 
that  corresponding  with  this  gradation  in  objective- 
ness  in  the  senses,  is  the  degree  of  facility  with 
which  they  receive  idea  to  be  revealed,  we  shall 
need  to  look  no  further  for  a  solution  of  the  ques- 
tion, how  philosophers  could  have  come  to  make  the 
exclusion  unless  they  had  recognized  a  ground  for 
it  in  the  nature  of  things  ;  especially  as  they  have 
nowhere  indicated  any  reason  for  the  exclusion  but 
have  given  their  mere  arbitrary  declaration  that  such 
is  the  fact,  and  as,  moreover,  all  aprioi  i  considera- 
tions are  against  their  doctrine,  as  also  the  actual 
facts  that  the  lower  senses  are  largely  engaged  in 
the  revelations  of  beauty  in  nature  and  in  art. 


IOO  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

Arts  classed  in  §9J-    Distributing  now  objects  of  ar- 

a'dSfe^s  eea!-  tistic  beauty  in  reference  to  the  matter 

Architecture.  ' 


class  of  immediate  forms,  we  have  first,  the  products 
of  the  great  art  which  is  cognizable  through  the 
highest  in  order  of  the  senses  —  the  sight  —  the  art 
of  architecture.  Inasmuch  as  there  are  two  quali- 
ties of  material  bodies  with  which  the  organ  of 
vision  is  conversant  —  outline  or  figure  and  color, 
corresponding  to  the  extensive  or  spacial  and  the 
intensive  relations  of  bodies,  all  architecture  must 
recognize  primarily  and  universally  these  two  prop- 
erties and  all  principles  of  the  art  must  ground 
themselves  on  these  as  essential. 

To  the  next  class  under  inorganic  forms  embrac- 
ing those  which  immediately  address  the  ear,  belong 
the  arts  of  Music  and  of  Spoken  Discourse. 

Of  these  Vocal  Music  or  Song  in  which 
Music.  the  idea  as  formed  in  words  is  made  a 

prominent  element  and  also  Spoken 
Discourse,  both  oratory  and  recited  poetry,  so  far 
as  it  is  contemplated  in  any  degree  apart  from  the 
form  of  sound  as  effect  on  the  ear,  present  this 
peculiar  feature  —  that  they  are  complete  arts  fur- 
nishing complete  revelations  irrespectively  of  the 
matter  of  sound  —  in  which  they  ultimately  incor- 
porate the  idea.  They  so  far  come  under  the  class 
of  Mediate  Forms.  Merely  that  Music  which  is 
effected  through  the  voice,  apart  from  words,  and 
Elocution  or  Recitation  therefore,  strictly  speaking, 
belong  here,  when  they  appear  predominantly,  not 
as  rendering  thought,  but  only  as  immediate  ex- 


MATERIAL    BEAUTY.  IOI 

pression  of  idea  through  mere  modifications  of 
voice. 

The  arts  which  address  the  other 
Perfumery.  senses  either  so  exclusively  regard 

some  end  of  utility,  as  the  culinary 
arts  and  the  art  of  Perfumery  or  are  in  such  a  de- 
gree subordinate  to  other  arts  that  no  recognition 
of  them  as  coordinate  with  those  that  have  been 
enumerated  as  addressing  the  senses  of  seeing  and 
hearing,  has  prevailed  or  is  for  any  purpose  desira- 
ble. We  should  be  far,  however,  from  denying  them 
on  this  ground  all  admission  into  the  domain  of 
beauty. 

Passing  to  the  next  higher  class  of 
Landscape.  forms,  we  come  to  those  of  organic  life, 

where  we  find  the  art  of  Landscape 
addressing  itself  predominantly  to  the  sense  of 
sight,  but  not  with  entire  exclusion  of  the  others,  as 
it  does  not  confine  itself  to  mere  organic  forms ; 
but  masses  of  rock,  of  earth,  of  water  in  their  de- 
gree and  subordinately  engage  its  interest.  Still 
Landscape,  or  as  it  is  familiary  known  under  the 
more  cumbrous  designation,  Landscape-Gardening, 
is  an  art  that  characteristically  and  chiefly  ad- 
dresses the  sight  and  in  the  forms  of  organic  life. 
It  is  on  these  characteristics  chiefly  that  its  laws  or 
regulative  principles  are  grounded. 

The  second  general  division  of  objects 
SIS  aad  of  visual  beauty  so  far  as  products  of 

art,  embraces  those  which  reveal  char- 
acteristically in  mediate  forms.  It  includes  the  two 
great  arts  of  Sculpture  and  Painting.  Taking  the 


IO2  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

highest  product  in  each — the  human  form,  we  see 
at  once  that  the  character  which  they  undertake  to 
reveal  is  first  conceived  as  it  shows  itself  in  the 
bodily  feature,  figure,  and  attitude.  The  artist  first 
possesses  himself  of  the  character  and  then  of  the 
form  as  thus  embodied  ;  and  it  is  this  bodily  form 
in  which  his  ideal  is  immediately  revealed.  A  dis- 
tinct process  of  art  renders  this  embodiment  of  his 
original  ideal  in  marble  or  in  color. 

Entering  now  the  immediate  forms  of 

Pantomime,  Vo-  .  _  _  . 

cai  Music,  t.ad    sentient  hie  we  find  the  various  arts 

Elocution.  . 

of  bodily  expression,  as  those  of  Pan- 
tomime and  of  Gesticulation  addressing  the  eye, 
and  those  of  Vocal  Music  and  of  Elocution  address- 
ing the  ear,  including  the  proper  theatrical  or 
histrionic  arts,  and  of  a  lower  order  those  which 
simply  exhibit  muscular  agility  and  strength  with- 
out other  expression  of  idea. 

In  the  art  of  the  stage,  we  find  the  arts  of  panto- 
mime and  of  elocution,  as  also  of  discourse,  all 
singularly  blended,  and  concurring  in  revelation  of 
idea,  to  eye  and  ear. 

We  come,  next,  to  the  revelations  of 
Discourse.  idea  in  proper  spirit-forms.  The  great 

art  which  here  introduces  itself  is  that 
of  Discourse.  That  it  belongs  here  appears  at  once 
from  the  fact  that,  although  idea  can  reach  another 
mind  only  through  the  outward  sense,  and  discourse 
therefore  requires  the  medium  of  the  written  or 
spoken  word,  it  may  adopt  either,  and  proves  thus 
its  proper  essential  form  to  be  really  supersensible. 
So  in  the  interpretation  of  discourse,  while  it  is 


FORMAL    BEAUTY.  1 03 

possible  for  us  to  contemplate,  also,  the  worthy 
incorporation  of  the  idea  in  the  last  form  of  the 
Pantomime  or  of  the  Recitation  and  admire  the  art 
that  appears  there,  we  must,  in  order  to  interpret 
the  orator  or  the  poet,  contemplate,  apart  from 
these  same  outward  forms,  the  proper  immediate 
forms  in  which  he  has  revealed  his  idea. 


CHAPTER  V. 

FORMAL      BEAUTY. 

Formal  Beauty  §  92-  The  third  principle  of  division 
ftSttlLJ1*  applicable  to  objects  of  beauty  distin- 
Beauty>  guished  in  respect  of  their  essential 

nature,  is  given  in  the  revelation  itself  of  idea  in 
matter.  If  we  have  rightly  apprehended  this  as  the 
essential,  vital  element  of  beauty,  we  should  find 
here  the  higher,  more  important  sets  of  the  various 
possible  divisions  of  beauty — such  as  are  more  dis- 
tinctive, characteristic,  and  essential. 
Fundamental  Looking  now  at  this  element  of  beauty 
—the  revelation  itself— in  order  that 
we  may  detect  what  in  its  very  nature 


IO4  KINDS    OF   BEAUTY. 

can  furnish  the  ground  of  important,  fundamental 
divisions  of  beauty,  we  recognize  in  it  at  once  the 
nature  of  an  activity.  Revelation  is  of  mind,  an 
act,  a  process,  of  mental,  of  rational  energy. 
Further  it  is  a  uniting  act,  uniting  idea  and  matter, 
incorporating  the  one  in  the  other.  It  is  obvious, 
then,  that  the  revelation  of  idea  in  matter  may  be 
contemplated  in  three  different  aspects:  i.  The 
revealing  activity  may  regard  more  itself — its  own 
procedure  in  the  revelation  ;  or,  2.  it  may  regard 
more  the  tendency  and  resulting  effect  of  its  work ; 
or,  3.  it  may  regard  more  the  relation  of  the  two 
terms  which  it  is  its  function  to  unite,  that  is,  the 
relation  of  the  idea  to  be  revealed  to  the  revealing 
matter.  In  other  words,  in  a  revelation,  we  may  in 
our  analytic  study  fix  our  eye  more  on  the  reveal- 
ing activity  and  in  our  interpretation  of  it  emphasize 
that ;  or  we  may  look  more  at  the  result  and  the 
revealing  act  as  completed  and  emphasize  that ;  or, 
in  the  third  place,  we  may  turn  to  the  idea  to  be 
revealed  in  its  relation  to  the  revealing  matter,  and 
emphasize  that  in  our  interpretation. 

§  93.  Beginning  with  the  first  empha- 
BesMty!  * ' s  * ' c  sized  character  in  the  relationship  of  a 

revelation  of  beauty,  that  of  the  reveal- 
ing activity  itself,  we  are  furnished  at  once  with 
that  important  distinction  of  beauty  which  marks 
it  in  its  closer  relation  to  the  revealing  activity 
itself.  When  this  predominates  to  our  view  in  the 
object  we  recognize  what  we  call  Artistic  beauty. 
It  contrasts  itself  at  once  with  those  two  kinds  of 
beauty  named,  one  of  which,  looking  more  at  the 


FORMAL    BEAUTY.  IO5 

idea,  we  have  called  Ideal  Beauty,  the  other,  look- 
ing more  at  the  matter  in  which  the  revelation  is 
effected,  we  have  called  Material  Beauty. 

The  reality  of  this  distinction  we  meet  every- 
where. It  may  be  illustrated,  to  some  degree  at 
least,  in  three  of  our  greatest  poets.  In  Spenser, 
we  find  proper  ideal  beauty  characteristic.  It  is  in 
the  richness,  variety,  perfectness  of  his  idea  that 
we  find  the  charm  of  his  poetry.  In  Milton,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  material  beauty  which  reigns  pre- 
dominant and  characteristic.  We  are  ravished  with 
the  luxuriance  and  expressiveness  of  his  vocabu- 
lary, the  admirable  harmony  and  melody  of  his 
verse-forms  ;  the  inexhaustible  supply  of  material 
of  every  kind  at  his  command,  inorganic,  and  living, 
vegetable,  animal,  human,  and  angelic, — the  control 
of  all  the  stores  of  expression  in  nature  or  in  art,  in 
literature  and  science.  The  richness  of  idea  is 
eclipsed  by  the  magnificence  and  exuberance  of  its 
investing  matter.  In  Shakespeare,  we  admire  the 
proper  artistic  energy,  the  marvelous,  matchless 
power  of  revealing.  You  may  find  elsewhere 
greater  profusion  and  elevation  of  idea,  a  fuller, 
more  beautiful  vocabulary,  and  more  luxuriant  rep- 
resentative imagery ;  nowhere  such  power  of  grasp- 
ing idea  and  matter  and  incorporating  the  one  with 
the  other  in  such  inseparable  bonds,  in  such  unal- 
terable relationships.  We  recognize  the  same  dis- 
tinctions of  beauty  in  three  of  the  princes  in  mod- 
ern German  literature.  In  Schiller  it  is  the  ideal, 
— the  thought,  the  feeling,  the  character,  the  spirit, 
the  event, — in  short  the  theme  to  be  revealed,  which 


IO6  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

ever  occupies  him,  which  engrosses  the  reader's 
mind.  In  Jean  Paul  Richter,  it  is  the  wonderful 
richness  of  his  matter — more  particularly  in  his 
spirit-forms, — his  proper  imagery — that  transports 
us  as  we  read  his  works.  While  in  Goethe  we  have 
the  artistic  power  which  plays  with  idea  and  matter 
as  with  toys,  combining  them  at  will  with  a  most 
admirable  dexterity  and  skill.  In  Painting  we  find 
the  same  distinction  exemplifying  itself.  In  ideal 
beauty,  in  the  richness  and  grandeur  of  his  idea, 
Michael  Angelo  reigns  conspicuous  in  art;  in 
material  excellence,  in  his  command  of  outline  we 
admire  chiefly  Guido  Reni  and  of  color,  Titian ; 
while  in  artistic  power, — in  power  to  reveal  given 
idea  in  given  matter,  Raphael  outranks  all. 

It  is  in  that  species  of  art  which  reveals  in  medi- 
ate forms  that  we  find  this  distinction  more  impos- 
ing. Here  we  often  encounter  what  we  discrimi- 
nate as  a  rendering  energy,  or  as  a  facility  and  grace 
of  execution,  which  is  but  this  artistic  virtue  that  we 
have  distinguished.  We  recognize  it  also  in  those 
arts  which  we  denominate  mechanical.  Here  we  often 
meet  with  a  true  beauty  that  excites  our  warm  ad- 
miration which  lies  merely  in  the  artistic  excellence 
that  characterizes  the  product.  We  dwell  not  so 
much  on  the  idea — the  design  to  be  put  into  the 
material ;  not  on  the  material  but  on  the  artist's 
work  itself  in  incorporating  the  one  in  the  other. 
We  admire  the  intelligence  that  has  guided  his  hand 
in  perfect  regularity  and  order,  observing  every  re- 
lationship of  internal  propriety  and  external  adapta- 
tion, without  stumbling  or  erring,  avoiding  all  that 


FORMAL    BEAUTY.  TO/ 

is  monstrous  ;  or  the  soul  that  is  poured  into  the 
work,  the  heartiness,  the  joyousness  which  gleams 
everywhere  from  it,  which  charms  and  gladdens  us 
although  the  intellect  can  find  no  characters  in 
which  to  interpret  or  by  which  to  denominate  the 
particular  features  or  parts  in  which  the  charm  is 
concealed,  which  speaks  to  our  hearts  and  to  which 
our  listening  hearts  respond,  feeling  the  wide  con- 
trast there  is  between  such  a  rendering  and  one 
that  is  proper  but  cold,  skillful  but  heartless  ;  or 
still  again  we  admire  the  wonderful  freedom  in 
which  the  revealing  activity  has  moved  throwing 
around  the  work  the  girdle  of  grace,  characterizing 
the  product  not  for  its  brightness,  not  for  its  warmth 
and  glow,  but  for  its  proper  gracefulness. 

§  94.  The  second  ground  of  distinction 

II.  Free  Beauty,      ?  \*  . 

and  Dependent  in  beauty  given  in  an  analysis  ot  the 
revelation  itself,  is  its  relation  to  the 
result  or  effect ;  or  if  we  view  this  result  as  antici- 
pated and  designed,  its  relation  to  such  designed 
object  or  aim.  We  have  here  at  once  presented  to 
us  the  grand  distinction  of  Free  Beauty  and  Depend- 
ent Beauty,  as  we  conceive  of  the  revelation  looking 
only  to  itself  as  its  end  or  aim,  or  as  looking  to 
something  ulterior  or  outside  of  this.  Free  beauty 
we  recognize  when  the  revelation  of  idea  is  merely 
for  that  purpose,  for  mere  expression,  mere  realiza- 
tion, mere  embodiment.  Dependent  Beauty  we 
recognize  in  a  revelation  made  for  some  ulterior 
object,  not  for  the  mere  embodiment  itself. 

The  validity  of  this  distinction,  as  well  as  of  a 
lower  distinction  which  we  shall  notice  in  Depend- 


IO8  KINDS     OF    BEAUTY. 

ent  Beauty,  is  too  obvious  to  require  prolonged  dis- 
cussion. The  nature  of  these  distinctions  is  equally 
obvious.  Idea  is  attribute  of  mind,  which  is  in  its 
essential  nature  an  activity,  and  in  its  proper  and 
higher  form  a  moral  activity.  This  activity  can 
readily  be  regarded  as  for  its  own  sake,  seeking 
only  expression,  or  as  in  relation  to  an  outer  world, 
either  as  seeking  simply  to  communicate  itself  in 
its  own  essential  nature  to  other  activity  of  the  same 
nature,  or  to  impress  itself  upon  such  activity. 
Mind  may,  in  other  words,  be  regarded  as  simply 
acting,  as  acting  out  in  certain  form,  or  as  acting 
out  a  result  on  the  world  about  it.  Idea  may  be 
regarded  as  mere  idea,  as  idea  in  meet  form,  or  as 
idea  impressing  itself  on  other  natures  for  good  or 
evil.  To  this  distinction  corresponds  the  distinc- 
tion in  the  mind  that  regards  it.  Idea,  as  mere 
idea,  addresses  itself  to  the  perceptive  or  intuitive 
faculty ;  idea,  as  mere  revelation  or  expression,  to 
the  contemplative  or  imaginative  faculty  ;  idea,  as 
impression  on  others,  to  the  approving  faculty. 
Psychology  has  sometimes  marked  the  distinction 
in  the  mind  addressed  as  that  of  intuition,  imagina- 
tion, conscience,  but  is  at  discord  with  itself  in 
its  nomenclature. 

All  revelation  of  idea  being  in  the  domain  of 
beauty  and  constituting  that  domain,  the  distinction 
of  free  beauty  and  dependent  beauty  becomes  at 
once  a  natural  one.  If  the  idea  be  perfectly  free  in 
its  outgoing,  that  is,  if  it  consult  only  itself,  its  own 
nature,  its  own  properties  in  assuming  natural  form, 
it  is  properly  denominated  free.  If  it  reveal  itself 


FORMAL    BEAUTY.  1 09 

with  a  view  to  an  end  out  of  itself,  it  is  so  far  dependent, 
as  it  so  far  modifies  its  proper  embodiment.  Its 
form  is  one  in  its  free  expression ;  another  in  its 
expression  for  the  sake  of  imparting  itself  in  its 
own  interior  nature  to  foreign  apprehension  ;  still 
another  when  it  seeks  in  its  expression  to  impress 
results  exterior  to  itself.  We  recognize  here  a 
common  nature,  with  palpable  modifications.  In 
all  revelation  of  idea  there  is  beauty,  truth,  and 
good.  One  revelation  we  recognize  as  beautiful, 
for  the  idea  is  revealed  for  the  sake  of  its  own  ex- 
pression and  embodiment  to  be  admired  ;  another 
is  true,  for  the  idea  is  revealed  for  the  sake  of  what 
it  is  in  itself  to  be  known  ;  a  third  is  good,  for  it  is 
revealed  to  impress  a  result  in  blessing.  An  object 
of  free  beauty,  as  a  poem,  contains  ever  a  truth  to  be 
known  ;  as  such  it  may  by  virtue  of  the  abstract- 
ing power  of  the  mind  be  regarded  simply  in  that 
relation,  and  when  so  regarded,  it  is  recognized 
simply  as  truth.  So  a  form  of  truth  regarded  as 
simple  revelation  may  be  contemplated  as  so  far 
beautiful.  We  speak  of  a  beautiful  demonstration 
in  mathematics.  Philosophy  not  only  teaches,  it 
pleases  as  a  beautiful  revelation  ;  and  also,  as  it 
imparts  good,  it  blesses.  Proper  science  is  true  in 
its  idea,  beautiful  in  its  form,  blessing  in  its  object. 
Poetry  not  only  pleases  as  beautiful,  it  also  teaches  : 
and  moreover  blesses.  Proper  art  must  please  in 
its  form,  instruct  in  its  idea,  bless  in  its  appropriate 
result. 

With   this   common    nature    we    recognize   the 
several  modifications.      Revelation  for  the  form's 


I  IO  KINDS    OF     BEAUTY. 

sake  is  beauty  ;  for  the  idea's  sake,  is  truth  ;  for  the 
end's  sake,  is  goodness.  As  the  one  or  the  other  oi 
these  features  predominates,  it  gives  character  to 
the  revelation.  The  same  product  as  a  poem  or  a 
painting  is  characterized  as  beautiful,  as  true,  or  as 
good,  according  as  it  is  regarded  more  in  respect 
to  its  form,  to  its  own  interior  relations,  or  to  its 
effect  in  blessing. 

The  distinction  furnishes  to  us  at  once  laws  or 
guiding  principles  in  all  the  arts — laws  and  prin- 
ciples most  vital  to  perfection,  yet  almost  of  neces- 
sity obscured  and  hidden  until  the  distinction 
recognized  reveals  them.  Free  beauty  governs 
itself  by  essentially  other  principles  than  Depen- 
dent Beauty.  The  only  difficulty  will  be  in  deter- 
mining the  extent  of  the  applications  of  the  diverse 
principles  which  the  two  classes  respectively 
originate. 

§  05.    Entering  now  the  society  of  the. 

Division    of   the      °    yJ  .  «... 

Arts  as  Free  or    arts  with  tnis  principle  of  distinction 

Independent.  .  1,1  , 

we  find  it  exactly  shaped  and  adjusted 
to  the  cleavages  familiarly  recognized,  showing  their 
source  and  direction,  and  straitening  out  and  har- 
monizing what  is  clearly  distorted  and  discordant 
in  them,  illuminating  all  and  revealing  all  in  beau- 
tiful order. 

We  find  no  difficulty  now  in  discriminating  the 
Free  Arts,  otherwise  termed  the  Liberal  Arts,  the 
Fine  Arts,  the  Elegant  Arts,  from  those  diversely 
deaominated  the  Useful  Arts,  the  -Mechanical  Arts. 

Passing  to  the  individual  arts,  Architecture  we 
readily  see  belongs  under  the  denomination  of 


FORMAL    BEAUTY.  Ill 

Dependent  Beauty ;  for  it  characteristically  seeks  an 
end  of  utility.  Yet  it  has  all  gradations  from  the 
mere  sheltering  cabin  to  the  free  beauty  of  a 
temple.  It  appears  sometimes  as  properly  free  art. 
The  beautiful  temple  which  a  grateful  memory  has 
erected  by  the  grave  of  Robert  Burns,  on  Carlton 
Hill  in  Edinburgh,  is  an  instance  of  Architectural 
free  beauty. 

Music  is  free  beauty  in  its  most  prevalent  form. 
But  in  the  service  of  religion  or  of  country,  it  modi- 
fies itself  and  becomes  dependent.  In  recitative  it 
marks  its  lowest  gradation  as  dependent  beauty  ;  in 
wordless  voice  or  instrument,  its  highest  degree 
as  free  beauty. 

These  three  characters  which  revelation  when 
analyzed  in  its  own  nature  thus  unfolds  to  us,  it  will 
be  remarked,  are  all  of  them  essentially  relative. 
They  are  through  and  through,  characters  of  rela- 
tionship. This  property  of  relationship  we  must 
never  drop  from  our  view  as  we  proceed  to  trace 
out  the  distinctions  of  beauty  which  are  here  to  be 
indicated. 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  helpful  to  a  recog- 
of"u1dffngfanact  nition  of  this  ground  of  distinction,  of 
its  reality  and  its  nature  as  well  as 
significance,  to  revert  again  for  illustration  to  the 
analogies  of  an  act  of  judgment.  In  every  act 
of  judging  there  are  the  three  elements  concurring: 
there  is  something  of  which  we  judge,  something 
judged  of  it,  and  the  judging  act.  The  judging  act 
is  in  the  copula,  so  called.  Now  we  may  consider 
apart  and  separately  that  of  which  we  can  judge — 


112  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

all  possible  subjects.  We  can  distinguish  subjects, 
classify  them ;  characterize  judgments  by  them 
In  the  same  way  we  can  proceed  with  the  predicate 
or  attribute,  and  classify  judgments  in  respect  to 
the  particular  characteristics  of  the  predicate.  So, 
also,  we  may  classify  the  judgment  by  the  particular 
qualities  of  the  copula  or  judging  act  itself.  And 
in  this,  still  further,  we  may  find  still  other  grounds 
of  distinction.  We  may,  for  instance,  emphasize 
the  copula  in  respect  to  its  own  essential  nature  as 
a  mere  judging,  a  mere  identifying  activity,  or  we 
may  emphasize  the  result,  the  product  of  the  act — 
the  judgment  itself  in  its  nature  and  relations  ;  or, 
finally,  we  may  emphasize  more  the  mere  relation- 
ship of  subject  and  attribute  to  each  other.  And 
in  this  analysis  of  the  judging  element  itself  as  the 
uniting,  constituting  element  of  the  complex  act  in 
a  judgment,  we  may  ground  distinctions  that  are 
relatively  to  all  others,  more  essential  and  more  sig- 
nificant and  important. 

Discourse  is  clearly  distinguishable  as  free  char- 
acteristically in  Poetry  ;  as  dependent  in  Oratory, 
History,  and  Scientific  Discourse.  Yet  Poetry 
modifies  its  freedom  when  it  enlists  in  the  service 
of  philosophy  or  morality ;  and  may  be  but  little 
more  free  than  some  of  the  forms  of  Prose  Dis- 
course. Much  Didactic  Poetry  is  as  dependent  as 
some  prose  Oratory. 

Landscape  is  predominantly  free.  As  it  bends  to 
the  sway  of  utility  it  becomes  so  far  dependent, 
and  binds  in  its  proper  freedom. 

Pantomime  in  all  its  forms  is  perfectly  free.  In 
spoken  discourse,  it  likewise  becomes  dependent. 


FORMAL    BEAUTY.  113 

In  the  same  way,  Sculpture  and  Painting  are 
predominantly  free  arts.  In  Portrait  Painting,  in 
Statuary  from  living  objects,  it  serves  an  end  out  of 
itself;  it  becomes  dependent 

$  96.   The  third  ground  of  distinction 

III.  Distinctions     ^  .  ,  i       •          r     i 

founded  on  »he    in  beauty  ffiven  in  the  analysis  of  the 

revelation  itself.  ,  ,/.  /• 

revelation  itself — the  copula  of  the  two 
terms,  idea  revealed  and  matter  revealing — was  found 
in  the  relationship  which  the  revelation  expresses 
between  the  two  terms.  We  discover  here  as  be- 
fore three  possible  distinctions,  under  which  all 
others  must  fall  and  be  subordinate.  First,  the 
terms — the  revealed  idea  and  the  revealing  matter 
— may  be  in  perfect  equipoise  and  harmony  ;  or, 
Secondly,  the  revealed  idea  may  overbear  or  outspan 
the  revealing  matter ;  or,  Thirdly,  the  revealing 
matter  may  preponderate  over  the  revealed  idea. 

§  97.  The  first  kind  of  beauty  indi- 
Proper  Beauty  cated  as  given  by  this  distinction  is 

that  in  which  the  terminal  co-efficients 
of  beauty,  the  idea  and  matter,  are  revealed  as  in 
perfect  harmony.  This  may  be  denominated/n?/^ 
beauty.  It  is  the  kind  of  beauty  which,  for  the  most 
part,  we  have  in  view  when  we  attribute  this  quality 
to  any  object  and  pronounce  it  beautiful.  This 
circumstance,  it  may  be  remarked  in  passing,  has 
perhaps  occasioned  in  a  great  degree  the  vague, 
indefinite,  supposition  that  this  is  the  only  allowa- 
ble application  of  the  term  ;  that  only  such  objects 
should  be  called  beautiful  as  express  the  idea  and 
matter  in  this  perfect  harmony.  But  we  should 
treat  this  only  as  an  instance  of  unwarrantable 


114  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

narrowness  of  view  precisely  paralleled  in  that 
which  we  have  noticed  in  our  early  writers  on 
beauty  who  limit  it  to  objects  of  sight,  excluding 
music  and  poetry  as  well  as  all  objects  that  address 
the  other  senses,  from  the  sphere  of  beautiful  things. 

Proper  Beauty,  then,  is  that  species 
its  nature.  of  beauty  in  which  the  revealed  idea 

and  the  revealing  matter  are  in  perfect 
equipoise  and  harmony.  That  there  should  be  such 
harmonious  relationship,  even  in  appearance,  rela- 
tive to  the  contemplating  mind,  implies  not  only  an 
a  pi  iori  correspondence  of  idea  and  matter  in  all  its 
forms  as  already  indicated,  —  inorganic,  organic, 
sentient,  and  ideal, — but  an  actual  commensurate- 
ness  between  the  terms  in  every  instance  of  proper 
beauty. 

We  need  here,  as  before,  to  observe  carefully  the 
distinction  between  beauty  in  itself,  and  beauty  as 
apprehended  by  the  contemplating  mind.  As  we 
have  seen,  a  true  revelation,  which,  as  such,  in  itself, 
may  be  strictly  an  object  of  beauty,  may,  by  the 
mind  that  views  the  revelation,  be  regarded  only  as 
expressive  of  the  real  as  idea  to  be  known,  and  so 
be  no  beauty  to  it ;  or  in  relation  to  the  result  of  the 
revelation,  as  morally  right  or  good,  and  in  this  case, 
also,  be  no  longer  beautiful  to  it ;  so  here  it  is  in 
the  power  ot  the  contemplating  mind  to  see  a  reve- 
lation as  one  of  either  of  the  three  several  classes 
given  by  the  distinction  in  hand. 

The  effect  of  Proper  Beauty  on  the 
its  effect.  viewing  mind  is  that  which  we  should 

at  once  anticipate  from  this  view  of  its 


FORMAL    BEAUTY.  115 

distinctive  nature.  The  experience  of  proper 
beauty  is  ever  in  undisturbed  tranquillity  and  re- 
pose. There  may  be  degrees  in  intensity  of  emo- 
tion as  of  vividness  of  view  ;  but  the  effect  is,  ever 
and  characteristically,  one  of  perfect  satisfaction 
and  quiet  enjoyment.  The  mind  rests  in  contented 
contemplation.  So  the  creator,  as  he  contemplated 
his  creative  idea  filled  out  in  perfect  fullness  in  the 
realized  creation,  pronounced  it  good  and  rested. 
Infinite  idea  in  infinite  universe  of  matter,  if  lan- 
guage sanctioned  by  use  yet  literally  absurd  may 
be  used,  is  not  merely  infinite,  but  perfect  beauty. 
Finite  idea  exactly  filling  finite  matter  is  also  per- 
fect beauty.  When  the  finite  mind  so  contemplates 
it,  it  is  in  the  experience  of  proper  beauty  perfect 
in  its  kind. 

§  98.  The  second  kind  of  beauty,  in- 
KeN?"Sirae:~  dicated  as  given  by  this  distinction,  is 

that  in  which  the  revealed  idea  is  in 
preponderance  as  it  respects  the  revealing  matter. 
In  this  species  of  beauty,  the  idea  asserts  its  supe- 
riority over  form, — spirit  over  matter;  the  idea 
overmasters  the  form,  breaks  through  it  as  it  were, 
and  stands  forth  in  the  majesty  of  its  own  divine, 
unparticipating  nature.  It  is  that  kind  which  is 
familiarly  recognized  as  the  sublime. 

Its  effect  on  the  contemplating  mind 
its  effect.  exactly  corresponds  with  this  view  of 

its  peculiar  nature.  The  mind  is  dis- 
turbed, unbalanced,  as  it  were.  It  is  no  longer,  as 
in  the  contemplation  of  proper  beauty,  in  harmony 
and  repose ;  it  is  in  unrest  and  disharmony.  It  is 


116  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

attracted  as  in  all  beauty,  but  it  is  awed,  not  simply 
satisfied.  The  proper  emotion  in  the  experience  of 
the  sublime  is  awe,  not  simple  admiration. 

§  99.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  adduce 
Authorities.  any  corroboration  of  this  view  of  the 

nature  of  the  sublime  from  generally 
recognized  authorities.  Reject  from  these  authori- 
ties what  we  must  regard  as  imperfect  or  erroneous 
in  their  theories,  and  we  find  a  substantial  agree- 
rrfent  as  to  the  admission  of  the  proper  character- 
istics of  the  sublime,  whether  determined  from  its 
own  objective  nature,  or  its  effect  in  experience. 

"Reason  and  Sense"  says  Schiller,* 
Schiiier.  "  harmonize  under  the  sway  of  beauty, 

and  it  possesses  attraction  for  us  only 
on  account  of  this  agreement.  *  *  *  On  the 
contrary,  reason  and  sense  do  not  harmonize  in  the 
sublime,  and  in  this  very  opposition  between  both 
lies  the  magic  whereby  it  invades  our  mind." 

"  So  ^Esthetic  sublimity  of  action," 
Richter  says  Richter  evidently  speaking  under 

the  lead  of  the  same  view,  and  in  refer- 
ence to  one  variety  of  the  sublime,  that  of  action, 
as  distinguished  from  that  of  mere  vastness  or 
degree,  "  stands  in  an  inverse  relation  to  the  impor- 
tance of  the  sensuous  symbol,  and  only  the  smallest 
is  the  sublimest ;  in  this  case,  Jupiter's  eye-brows 
moved  more  sublimely  than  his  arm  or  hirriself." 

Sir  William  Hamilton,  closely  following 
Hamilton.  Kant  here  as  elsewhere,  who  with 

Schelling  makes  the  sublime  to  consist 


*  ^Esthetic  Papers ;  Upon  the  Sublime. 


FORMAL    BEAUTY.  I  I'/ 

in  a  mere  relation  of  quantity — that  of  the  relatively 
Infinite, — distinguishes,  as  his  theory  of  feeling  as 
mere  pleasure  or  pain,  and  of  beauty  as  that  which 
engages  the  mind  in  an  agreeable  activity,  compels 
him  to  do,  proper  beauty  from  sublimity  by  this, 
that  beauty  engaging  a  free  and  full  activity  "  affords 
a  feeling  of  unmingled  pleasure,"  whereas  the  "feel- 
ing of  sublimity  is  a  mingled  one  of  pleasure  and 
pain."  "  The  beautiful  has  reference  to  the  form  of 
an  object,  and  the  facility  with  which  it  is  compre- 
hended. For  beauty,  magnitude  is  an  impediment 
Sublimity,  on  the  contrary,  requires  magnitude  as 
its  condition  ;  and  the  formless  is  not  unfrequently 
sublime."*  The  implication  of  quantity  in  the 
essential  nature  of  the  sublime  and  also  of  quantity 
in  the  idea  relatively  to  the  form,  in  these  extracts 
is  obvious.  In  beauty,  this  relation  of  quantity 
does  not  appear,  for  the  co-efficients,  idea  and 
matter,  are  commensurate  ;  in  sublimity,  quantity 
forces  itself  necessarily  on  the  contemplation,  for  it 
is  in  the  quantitative  disproportion  between  the  co- 
efficients, that  its  distinctive  characteristic  resides. 

Allowing  for  specific  difference  in  their 
Cousin.  theories  of  feeling  and  of  objective 

beauty,  we  find  the  leading  French 
philosophers  agreeing  with  the  authorities  already 
cited.  "When  intuition,"  says  Cousin,f  and  by  in- 
tuition here  he  means  simply  sense-perception, 
"When  intuition  alone  is  satisfied,  there  is  only  an 
agreeable  sensation,  stifled  by  the  displeasure  of 

*  Metaphysics  ;  Lecture  XLVI. 
tThe  Philosophy  of  the  Beautiful. 


Il8  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY, 

reason,  which  is  unable  to  grasp  unity  ;  and  imagk 
nation  cannot  rise  to  the  conception  of  beauty. 
When,  on  the  contrary,  we  arrive  at  unity,  and  in- 
tuition cannot  comprehend  all  the  variety  inclosed 
in  the  object,  the  beauty  we  perceive,  and  which 
occasions  a  displeasure  in  our  sensible  organization, 
and  at  the  same  moment  a  delight  in  our  mind,  has 
been  called  the  sublime.  But  when  the  parts  of  an 
object  are  not  so  various  and  numerous  as  not  to  be 
comprehended,  and  when  at  the  same  time,  the 
whole  can  be  easily  seized,  and  we  feel  a  perfect 
accord  between  the  various  and  unity,  between  the 
senses  and  reason,  we  stay  and  regard  the  spectacle 
with  delicious  emotion,  and  this  is  the  beautiful 
properly  so-called.  "We  determine  the  nature  of 
beauty  and  of  sublimity  apriori,  or,  as  it  were 
mathematically."  Cousin,  like  the  others,  makes 
the  distinction  of  beauty  and  sublimity  to  lie  in  the 
relation  of  quantity. 

This  view  of  the  essential  nature  of  the  sublime 
as  that  kind  of  revelation  in  which  the  revealed  idea 
outmeasures  and  predominates  over  the  revealing 
form  forces  upon  us  the  thought  that  the  idea  re- 
vealed is  not  necessarily  bounded  by  the  revealing 
form ;  and  compels  us  to  reject  all  that  reasoning, 
as  essentially  fallacious,  which  would  strive  to 
prove  that  the  finite  spirit  cannot  know  the  infinite 
on  the  simple  ground  that  knowing  implies  limita- 
tion both  in  the  object  known  and  also  in  the  subject 
knowing,  and  therefore  cannot  transcend  the  limits 
— the  finiteness  implied  in  form.  The  object  known 
is  not,  in  the  sense  which  this  reasoning  implies, 


FORMAL    BEAUTY.  1 19 

limited  either  to  the  limits  of  the  knowing  mind  or  to 
the  limits  of  the  revealing  object.  The  child  knows 
a  greater  spirit  than  itself  in  every  recognition  of  a 
guiding,  supporting,  cheering  parent.  The  still 
small  voice — a  revealing  form  of  the  narrowest 
limits  by  every  measure  that  can  be  applied  to  form 
— reveals  the  great  Jehovah  ;  yes,  better,  more 
impressively,  more  fully,  than  the  thundering  storm 
or  the  rending  earthquake. 

§  100.  The  most  essential  sub-divisions 
sStoS*  °f  the  of  the  sublime  will  be  grounded,  of 

course,  on  the  relation  of  objects  to 
this  attribute  of  quantity.  Kant  thus  distinguishes 
the  two  species,  of  mathematical,  and  dynamical ; 
that  is,  those  of  extensive  magnitude,  and  of  inten- 
sive greatness  or  of  power.  Hamilton  adds  to  these 
species,  which  he  denominates  the  extensive  and 
the  intensive,  that  in  the  relations  of  time,  viz.:  the 
protensive — "  the  sublime  of  Space,  the  sublime  of 
Time,  and  the  sublime  of  Power" — which  he  speaks 
of  as  "  the  three  quantities." 

But  we  cannot  stop  with  these.  There  are  more 
than  these  three  quantities.  Indeed,  the  relation  of 
the  last  quantity  named,  that  of  power,  to  the 
second,  that  of  time,  should  have  at  once  suggested 
the  analogical  correlative  to  space,  viz. :  substance, 
that  with  its  attributes  fills  space  as  power  with  its 
operations  fills  time. 

Nor  should  we  stop  here.  We  are  hardly  yet  in 
the  proper  domain  of  spiritual  activity;  space, 
time,  substance,  power — all  of  which  quantities  give 
us  peculiar  instances  of  the  sublime — are  in  mere 


T2O  KINDS    OF   BEAUTY. 

being,  and  the  forms  in  which  we  apprehend  being. 
There  are  other  quantities,  as  of  character  and  of 
truth.  Not  as  mere  substance,  not  as  mere  power, 
does  the  idea  strike  us  as  sublime  in  the  revelation 
of  Jehovah  to  Elijah  in  the  still  small  voice.  We 
speak  accordingly  of  great,  sublime  characters  ;  of 
the  sublime  in  action.  The  more  complete  and 
scientific  division  is  founded  on  the  three-fold  dis- 
crimination of  mental  experience — the  three-fold 
discrimination  of  ideas  or  phases  of  spiritual  being : 
Power,  Thought,  and  Passion. 

§  101.    The  third  kind  of  beauty  indi- 
The  Comic.          cated  as  given  by  the  distinction  in 
hand,  is  that  in  which  the  revealing 
matter  is  in  preponderating  disproportion   to   the 
revealed  idea.     We  have  here  the  species  of  beauty 
indicated  by  the  names  of  the  diverse  varieties,  such 
as  the  comic,  the  pretty,  the  diverting,  the  enter- 
taining.   Matter  seems  to  gain  ascend- 
its  nature.  ancy  over  spirit,  form  over  idea  ;  or  at 

least  idea  is  not  prominent.  A  face  is 
beautiful  when  character  is  perfectly  and  har- 
moniously revealed  in  fitly  expressive  features  and 
complexion.  It  is  pretty  when  the  features  and  the 
complexion  are  faultless,  but  it  is  expressionless  of 
idea — character,  soul,  perfection  of  spirit  is  in  defect. 
The  great  concerns  of  the  human  spirit,  its  great 
ever-pressing  cares  and  struggles,  its  mighty 
achievements,  its  immortal  destinies,  constitute  the 
sublime  ;  the  lighter  affairs,  the  transient,  the  en- 
tertainments of  the  hour,  and  all  the  un-reason  of 
the  life  make  up  the  comic. 


FORMAL    BEAUTY.  121 

Language  has  furnished  no  fit  appellation  for 
designating  this  species  of  form  ;  its  failure  in  this 
respect  is  attributable  to  the  fact  that  its  character- 
istic nature,  as  distinguished  from  the  other  species, 
has  not  been  accurately  ascertained.  Dr.  Thomas 
Brown,  in  his  lectures  on  the  Immediate  Emotions, 
drops  the  remark :  "  There  are  similes  which  are 
sublime,  similes  which  are  beautiful,  similes  which 
are  ludicrous."  He  here  seems  to  have  in  his  mind 
a  vague  conception  of  the  fundamental  distinction 
of  form  into  these  three  species  ;  but  the  name 
ludicrous  which  he  applies  to  the  third  can  properly 
denote  only  a  variety  of  the  species.  A  like  objec- 
tion might  be  urged  against  comic ;  yet  this  term 
seems  best  adapted  to  this  designation.  We  will 
accordingly  adopt  it,  and  signify  under  it  all  that 
species  of  form  in  whirh  the  matter  predominates 
over  idea. 

§  1 02.  We  may  readily  distinguish  two 
Dmsions  of  the  gradations  of  the  comic,  to  use  the 

term  in  this  large  generic  sense,  as  we 
start  from  its  nearest  affinities  to  proper  beauty. 
They  are  the  pretty  and  the  proper  comic. 

The  pretty  is  that  gradation  in  which 
i.  The  Pretty.  the  idea  is  simply  depressed  and  the 

form  fastens  the  contemplation  on  the 
matter  rather  than  on  the  idea  expressed  in  it.  It 
may  be  characterized  as  beauty  but  deficient  in 
expression.  Its  effect  is  more  like  that  of  proper 
beauty  ;  it  charms,  while  it  does  not  convulse  with 
laughter,  as  in  the  grossly  ludicrous.  Yet,  while 
beauty  never  tires,  and  we  return  to  contemplate 


122  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY. 

it  with  ever  fresh  delight,  the  pretty  soon  satisfies, 
and  we  do  not  care  to  return  to  it.  It  is  found  in 
objects  in  which  the  outer  form  is  more  perfect, 
while  the  inner  idea  is  not  suitably  expressed. 
Dress  is  pretty  when  viewed  apart  from  its  relations 
to  the  wearer  ;  when  accordingly  the  mere  internal 
and  essential  idea  of  dress  does  not  fitly  appear  in 
it.  A  landscape  is  pretty  when  the  forces  of  nature 
are  but  feebly  revealed,  while  the  outer  dress  is  all 
in  beautiful  variety,  harmony,  and  fullness,  con- 
sidered only  in  reference  to  that,  and  the  creative 
idea  is  suppressed.  A  poem  is  pretty  whose  out- 
ward form,  its  rhythm  and  flow  and  harmony,  are 
perfect,  but  idea  is  relatively  feeble  or  obscure. 

There  are  many  varieties  of  this  gradation. 
There  is  fae  fantastic,  in  which  idea  forgets  its  true 
nature  as  rational  and  shows  its  weakness  by  run- 
ning off  into  the  wild  and  capricious.  There  is 
the  simply  odd,  that  is  disconnected  from  the  order 
of  things,  and  stands  off  by  itself  alone.  There  is 
the  queer,  which  goes  athwart  the  regular  course  of 
things  ;  the  quaint,  which  is  studied  and  cultured  ; 
and  the  capricious,  that  lacks  both  study  and  reason. 

Under  this  gradation  we  recognize  also  the 
proper  mirthful,  in  which,  as  so  beautifully  painted 
in  Milton's  L' Allegro,  the  idea  goes  forth  charac- 
teristically as  activity,  movement,  perfect  freedom 
and  grace,  while  it  leaves  behind  the  deeper  nature 
of  the  soul,  its  great  concerns,  all  care  and  serious- 
ness, and  riots  in  this  freedom.  "With  wanton 
heed  and  giddy  cunning,"  it  appears  in  a  form  that 
mocks  and  yet  heeds  its  essentially  rational  nature, 


FORMAL   BEAUTY.  123 

and  plays  blindfold  with  its  intelligence  while  yet  it 
even  sees — contradicting  while  yet  following  the 
law  of  reason. 

§  103.  2.  A  second  gradation  of  the 
Proper  comic.  comic  is  found  in  the  proper  comic, 
where  the  idea  is  not  merely  overshad- 
owed, but  appears  as  positively  weak.  In  contem- 
plating it  the  attention  is  turned  more  upon  the 
idea  itself  than  on  the  outward  form  or  matter. 
Here  are  to  be  found  manifold  varieties.  A  leading 
division  is  into  the  intentional  and  the  unintentional. 

Of  the  intentional  comic  is  \^\Q  facetious  with  all 
the  different  kinds  of  witticisms.  True  wit  com- 
bines keenness,  quickness  — mental  power  which 
stirs  our  admiration — with  the  comic  which  moves 
our  laughter.  The  two  are  congruous  and  each 
heightens  the  effect  of  the  other.  The  comic  ele- 
ment m  it  is  the  manifestation  of  something  that  is 
not  according  to  reason. 

There  is  of  course  in  true  wit  that  which  sur- 
prises ;  as  that  which  is  not  according  to  reason, 
we  do  not  expect.  But  the  surprise  is  an  incident 
in  the  effect  of  the  ludicrous,  not  an  element  of  it. 
There  is  likewise  in  it,  as  not  according  to  reason, 
some  incongruousness.  The  idea,  as  wanting  in 
reason,  may  be  incongruous  in  its  parts  or  ele- 
ments, or  in  its  relations  to  its  source,  or  to  the  sur- 
roundings, or  to  its  form  of  expression.  Carica- 
ture thus  delights  to  represent  some  feature  in  in- 
congruous proportions  to  other  features,  or  brings 
incongruous  elements  together. 

The  play  upon  words  derives  its  power  to  amuse 


124  KINDS    OF    BEAUTY, 

from  this  incongruity  between  mind  and  its  expres- 
sion. Word,  as  the  product  of  reason,  should  from 
its  very  nature,  ever  be  the  embodiment  of  certain, 
unambiguous  idea.  When  it  is  used  to  signify- 
widely  different  things  or  admit  widely  different 
applications,  the  incongruity  becomes  comic ;  as 
when  in  a  tedious  legislative  debate,  a  speaker  who 
had  wearied  out  the  assembly  by  a  stupid  harangue 
stopped  to  take  a  glass  of  water,  was  called  to  order 
by  a  waggish  member  who  claimed  it  was  not  in 
order  for  a  windmill  to  go  by  water. 

The  intentional  comic  has  found  a  large  sphere 
in  the  amusements  of  all  nations.  The  love  of  the 
ludicrous  has  nowhere  so  freely  or  so  largely  in- 
dulged itself  as  in  the  Saturnalia  of  the  ancient 
Romans,  the  Carnival  jollities  of  the  moderns,  and 
the  grotesque  festivities  of  northern  Europe.  Thus 
at  the  annual  feasts  of  asses  in  France,  an  ass  was 
invested  in  sacerdotal  robes  and  a  mock  service 
performed  before  it  by  the  pope  of  fools  with  chants 
that  burlesqued  in  every  imaginable  way  all  serious 
things.  So  in  more  recent  times  festivity  is  wont 
to  run  into  the  incongruous  as  the  very  soul  of  the 
comic,  which  either  depresses  or  actually  mocks  at 
the  rational. 

The  unintentional  comic  is  exemplified 
The  Bull  in  the  familiar  bull.  Sir  Boyle  Roche 

has  the  reputation  of  being  the  father 
of  the  proper  Irish  bull.  The  comic  incongruity 
in  every  form, — incongruity  between  the  parts  of 
the  idea,  in  respect  to  its  relations,  and  in  respect 
to  the  expression, — characterizes  his  blunderings. 


FORMAL    BEAUTY. 

• 

"  Single  misfortunes,"  he  uttered  in  profound  wis- 
dom, "never  come  alone ;  and  the  greatest  of  all  mis- 
fortunes is  generally  followed  by  a  much  greater." 
In  the  Irish  House  of  Commons  he  had  in  debate 
remarked,  that  he  did  not  see  why  we  should  put 
ourselves  out  of  the  way  to  serve  posterity.  "  What," 
said  he,  "has  posterity  done  for  us?"  A  burst  of 
laughter  put  him  on  an  attempt  to  explain.  "  By 
posterity,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  do  not  mean  our  ancestors, 
but  those  who  are  to  come  immediately  after  them." 
These  comic  blunders  often  occur  in  translations 
when  the  unfixed  significance  of  words  occasions 
ludicrous  mistakes.  Thus  a  French  translation 
renders  the  last  part  of  the  Shakespearian  verse : — 

So  dull,  so  dead  in  look,  so  wo-begone, 

thus :  Ainsi  douleur!  va-f 'en,  as  if  he  had  reaa,  so. 
wo  !  begone.       / 


126  LAWS   OF  BEAUTY. 


BOOK   TIT 

LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 


CHAPTER   I. 

NATURE    AND    DIVISIONS. 

§  104.  The  Laws  of  beauty  are  learned 
T"  from  its  attributes.  Indeed,  the  char- 
acteristic properties  of  an  object  of 
beauty  are  but  its  laws  seen  from  another  point  of 
view.  In  the  same  way  we  regard  heaviness, 
gravity,  as  a  property  of  matter,  when  we  are  con- 
cerned with  an  analysis  of  its  attributes  ;  but  we 
speak  also  of  the  law  of  gravity,  meaning  only  that 
matter,  in  order  to  be  matter,  must  always  gravitate 
— must  be  heavy.  So  soon  as  we  recognize  an 
essential  attribute  of  an  object,  we  recognize  a  law 
of  its  being,  or  of  its  acting.  The  term  law,  how- 
ever, carries  with  it  the  notion  of  universality, 
which  does  not  necessarily  belong  to  an  attribute 
as  such,  but  only  to  an  essential  attribute,  or  such 
an  attribute  as  always  belongs  to  the  object  in  the 
conditions  to  which  the  law  applies.  For  we  may 
have  laws  that  are  derived  from  attributes  of  rela- 


NATURE   AND   DIVISIONS.  I2/ 

tion  as  well  as  from  essential  attributes  or  proper- 
ties. It  is  a  law  of  the  solar  system  that  the  planets 
revolve  about  the  sun  in  elliptic  orbits.  Yet  the 
essential  attributes  of  the  sun  would  remain  the 
same  were  there  no  planets  and  consequently  no 
relations  between  sun  and  planet,  upon  which  a  law 
of  revolution  could  be  founded. 

In  order  to  determine  the  laws  of  beauty  we  have 
only  to  replace  before  our  minds  the  attributes 
which  we  have  already  found  to  belong  to  beauty. 
We  study  them,  however,  from  a  different  point  of 
observation.  In  the  first  place,  we  found  the  kinds 
of  beauty,  as  given  by  its  different  attributes  under 
the  lead  of  an  analysis  of  beauty  into  its  constitu- 
ent elements,  and  proceeded  from  the  general 
attribute  itself  of  objects — their  beauty — to  the 
different  modifications  of  it  in  objects.  Our  method 
was  from  the  attribute  to  the  object.  Our  course 
now  is  the  reverse  of  this.  We  proceed  from  the 
object  to  the  attribute :  we  take  a  class  of  objects  of 
beauty  and  proceed  to  determine  from  their  essential 
nature,  as  belonging  to  such  a  class,  what  must  be 
their  attributes  or  their  laws. 

Further,  in  the  study  of  the  attributes  of  beauty 
we  look  at  it  as  an  object  presented  to  us  for  our 
investigation  ;  in  the  study  of  the  laws  of  beauty 
we  regard  rather  the  mind  producing  or  interpret- 
ing beauty.  In  the  one  case,  we  inquire  what  are 
the  different  forms  of  beauty  as  they  are  respec- 
tively characterized  by  the  relative  predominance 
of  this  or  that  element ;  in  the  other  case  we  inquire 
how  we  are  to  create  beauty  or  to  apprehend  beauty. 


128  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

The  laws  of  beauty  will  direct  and  govern  us  in  put- 
ting beauty  into  objects,  in  forming  objects  that  shall 
be  beautiful,  or  in  interpreting  beauty  out  of  them. 
Twofold  division  §  1 05.  There  are,  accordingly,  two 

1,  of  Production;    classes  of  laws  of  beauty :    The  one 

2,  of  Interpreta-  , 

ti°n.  class  pertain  to  the  production  of 

beauty;  the  other  class  to  the  interpretation  of 
beauty.  Form,  indeed,  has  two  sides,  the  one  look- 
ing to  the  embodying  or  communicating  mind ;  the 
other  to  the  contemplating  or  apprehending  mind. 
It  implies  a  revealing  and  also  a  receiving  mi-nd. 
Not  that  if  there  were  no  observing  mind  in  any 
particular  case  there  would  be  no  beauty.  But 
form  is  as  really  for  a  mind  as  of  and  from  a  mind. 
It  is  the  line  of  contact  between  the  two ;  as  the 
German  metaphysicians  might  say,  the  indifference 
point  between  subject  and  object;  the  place  of 
union  between  inter-communicating  minds.  The 
imagination  is  both  active,  creative  of  form,  and 
also  passive,  receptive  of  form.  Hence  the  division 
of  the  laws  of  beauty,  of  form,  of  the  imagination  as 
the  faculty  or  capacity  of  form,  into  the  two  classes 
of  laws  of  production  and  laws  of  interpretation. 

§  1 06.  Still  further,  beauty  exists  both 
fnToFan.1*4"6  in  nature  and  in  art.  It  appears  both 

as  of  divine  and  of  human  origin.  It 
is  the  same  in  both,  however,  in  its  essential  attri- 
butes. That  cannot  be  admitted  to  be  beauty  in  art 
which  is  contradictory  of  what  is  recognized  as 
beautiful  in  nature.  As  the  forms  of  nature  are  the 
revelations  of  the  divine  idea,  so  the  demand  that 
art  follow  nature  has  a  plausible  ground  of  validity. 


NATURE    AJfD    DIVISIONS.  I2Q 

As  mind  is  essentially  ever  the  same — -as  the 
human  mind  is  in  its  characteristics  as  mind  god- 
like, so  ideas  and  forms,  in  the  workings  and  ex- 
pressions of  all  mind  as  mind  must  be  alike  under 
the  general  law  of  mind.  Yet  the  expression  of  one 
mind  is  quite  different  in  its  modifications  from  that 
of  another.  The  forms  of  beauty  in  nature  as  the 
embodiments  of  the  divine  idea  are  specifically 
different  in  divers  modifications  from  those  of  art. 
There  is  a  beauty  characteristic  in  nature ;  there 
is  another  beauty  characteristic  in  aft.  Least  of  all 
is  copy  of  nature  of  itself  true  creative  art.  It  may 
be  purely  mechanical ;  and  so  far  no  proper  revela- 
tion of  original  idea. 

But  while  beauty  in  nature  and  in  art  is  ever  sub- 
ject to  the  same  laws  of  interpretation,  the  laws  of 
the  production  of  beauty  must  of  course  look  chiefly 
and  prominently  to  art. 

After  presenting  these  general  laws,  which  are 
applicable  to  all  production  of  beauty  in  whatever 
department,  and  which  are  derived  immediately 
from  the  three  constituents  of  beauty,  we  will  con- 
sider the  more  specific  laws  as  applied  to  the  arts. 
And,  in  respect  to  the  fine  arts,  considerations  of 
utility  will  lead  to  a  selection  out  of  all  the  possible 
kinds  of  art  of  those  only  which  have  evinced  their 
high  claim  to  the  regard  of  every  cultivated  mind 
by  the  extent  and  the  degree  of  perfection  in  which 
they  have  actually  appeared  in  history.  Six  stand  out 
in  grand  preeminence  before  all  others. 
Bix  leading  arts.  They  are :  Architecture;  Landscape; 
Sculpture  ;  Painting  ;  Music  ;  Dis- 


I3O  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

course.  The  first  four  of  these  address  the  eye. 
The  first  three  reveal  through  outline  mainly,  al- 
though landscape  cannot  wholly  overlook  light  and 
shade,  or  even  proper  color  in  the  disposition 'of 
its  vegetable  growths  ;  the  fourth  mainly  through 
color.  The  last  two  -immediately  address  the  ear ; 
but  the  last  also  mediately  through  the  ear  reveals 
a  proper  ideal  form  for  the  super-sensible  imagina- 
tion. Next  below  these,  but  at  a  wide  interval, 
has  been  ranked  the  so-called  histrionic  art,  includ- 
ing both  elocution  and  pantomime.  Then  come  the 
arts  which  address  the  lower  senses,  which  have 
hardly  as  yet  even  a  place  in  the  ^Esthetic  circle. 


CHAPTER  II. 

LAW    OF    IDEA. 

§  107.  Beauty  is  perfect  form.  The 
Selection.  first  law  accordingly  in  all  art  produc- 

tion, in  all  aesthetic  creation  is  that  the 
highest  perfection  in  all  the  elements  of  form  be 
aimed  at  which  the  nature  of  the  case  will  allow. 
There  are,  as  we  have  seen  §§  59-62,  gradations  of 
beauty  determined  respectively  by  the  relative  per- 


LAW    OF   IDEA.  13! 

fectness  of  the  idea,  the  matter,  and  the  embodi- 
ment. There  may  be  ideal  excellence,  or  material 
excellence,  or  rendering  excellence.  There  are 
gradations  of  ideas  ;  one  is  aesthetically  higher  than 
another.  If  the  idea  to  be  rendered  be  free  of 
selection,  this  subordination  of  one  idea  to  another 
should  be  regarded.  In  like  manner  there  may  be 
room  for  selection  in  regard  to  the  matter,  as  also 
in  the  modes  of  embodying ;  and  when  selection  is 
free,  there  should  be  rational  deliberation  and  choice 
in  order  to  the  highest  success  in  art.  This  law 
of  deliberate  and  careful  selection  applies  to  all 
the  three  elements  of  form. 

§  1 08.  A  more  specific  law  relates  to 
LsStsK  tne  treatment  of  the  idea  itself  to  be 

revealed.  This  law  of  ideals  requires 
several  things.  First  it  requires  that  the  idea  to  be 
revealed  should  be  perfectly  fashioned  out  into  a 
distinct,  fully  outlined  ideal  in  the  imagination. 
Just  so  far  as  art  production  is  attempted  with  no 
distinctly  formed  ideal,  with  no  distinct  imagination 
of  what  is  to  be  revealed,  the  production  must  fail. 
Perfectness  of  material,  skill  in  rendering,  will  not 
atone  for  this  fundamental  defect.  The  product  will 
be  empty,  meager,  unsatisfying.  Distinctness  and 
richness  of  idea  are  indispensable  in  all  art.  The 
first  work  of  an  artist  is  to  shape  this  ideal  into  the 
most  complete  and  definite  outline,  and  to  fill  it 
with  the  fullest  and  richest  spiritual  content,  of  in- 
telligence, of  feeling,  of  energy.  Here  almost  uni- 
versally there  is  room  for  long,  patient,  earnest,  and 
loving  labor.  The  imagination  is  subject  like  all 


132  LAWS   OF   BEAUTY. 

human  activity  to  the  conditions  of  time ;  and  can 
perfect  its  work  only  as  it  is  allowed  to  intensify  its 
power  and  elaborate  its  products.  ,  The  artistic 
labor  required  here  is  too  generally  overlooked.  In 
all  the  arts  the  ideal  receives  for  the  most  part  too 
little  study.  Yet  nowhere  is  artistic  work  more  ad- 
vantageously expended.  The  ideal  in  architecture, 
what  precisely  is  to  be  brought  out  in  the  design  of 
a  building ;  the  ideal  in  a  landscape,  what  precisely 
is  to  be  expressed  in  the  disposition  of  the  grounds 
and  of  tree  and  flower ;  the  ideal  in  discourse,  to 
exemplify  no  farther, — what  precisely  is  the  theme 
to  be  presented  and  the  object  for  which  it  is 
treated  ; — each  demands  a  care,  a  study,  that  can 
hardly  be  excessive,  before  any  embodiment  of  it  is 
attempted.  This  ideal  may  be  expected  to  grow  in 
richness  and  in  perfectness  even  in  the  very  work 
of  embodying ;  but  this  growth  can  only  be  assured 
by  this  previous  study  and  will  also  be  greatly  aided 
by  it. 

§  109.  Secondly,  this  law  of  the  idea 
G^Sd*-  requires  that  it  be  carefully  conformed 

to  the  nature  and  laws  of  the  mind  or 
spirit.  The  mind  is  simple  and  although  for  con- 
venience in  the  study  of  its  operations  we  distin- 
guish different  faculties  as  of  knowing,  feeling,  and 
willing,  yet  the  mind  is  ever  the  same  one  power, 
never  ceasing  to  feel  or  to  will  when  it  acts  as  in- 
telligence, and  never  dropping  its  intelligence  when 
its  states  are  predominantly  those  of  sensibility  or 
of  will.  It  is  ever  intelligent,  ever  feeling,  ever 
acting  as  will.  Every  ideal  of  perfect  art  must 


LAW    OF    IDEA.  133 

therefore  be  a  true  expression  of  the  nature  of  the 
mind  that  creates  it.  It  must  be  in  intelligence,  in 
feeling,  and  in  freedom,  never  such  as  an  unintelli- 
gent, an  unfeeling,  or  a  mere  mechanical  power 
could  effect.  Indeed,  the  more  of  these  great  char- 
acteristics of  mind,  the  more  of  intelligence,  the 
more  of  feeling,  the  more  of  freedom,  are  put  into 
the  ideal,  the  richer  and  the  higher  will  be  the  pro- 
duct when  realized  in  complete  form. 

§  1 10.    More  particularly,  every  ideal 

Tolawsofintelli-  C    p  \  e 

gence;— i. Truth-    m  art  must  conform  to  the  nature  of 

"^neSS-  •  •  T 

the  mind  as  intelligence.  It  must 
therefore  in  the  first  place  be  truthful ' ; — it  must  be 
such  as  that  it  may  be  apprehended  by  the  intelli- 
gence through  a  perfect  propriety  in  all  the  internal 
characters  ; — in  all  the  relations  of  its  parts  to  the 
whole  and  to  one  another — §  66.  Several  more 
specific  rules  are  comprehended  in  this. 

I.  The  ideal  must  be  one  whole.  It 
lm&l^hofe:f~  should  be  a  unit,  so  as  to  be  suscepti- 
ble of  being  apprehended  as  one  whole. 
So  vital  is  this  requisite  to  all  beauty  that,  as  we 
have  seen,  some  writers  on  art  have  resolved  all 
beauty  into  this  one  character — unity  in  diversity. 
Partial  as  is  this  theory  it  yet  contains  this  amount 
of  truth,  that  there  can  be  no  perfect  beauty  with- 
out the  strict  observance  of  this  principle  and  more- 
over, that  wherever  there  appears  this  unity  in 
diversity  there  is  beauty  more  or  less  perfect,  and 
simply  because  it  is  ever  a  form  of  mind  ;  because 
it  is  the  characteristic  expression  of  the  mind  as 
intelligence. 


134  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

2.  All  the  parts  must  be  in  such  rela- 
enMofpart5°nd~  tion  and  keeping  every  way  as  that 

they  may  readily  be  recognized  as  com- 
plementary parts  of  the  same  whole  by  the  appre- 
hending intelligence.  This  rule  looks  to  the  rela- 
tions of  the  parts  to  one  another ;  the  previous  rule 
to  the  relations  of  the  parts  to  the  whole.  Each 
rule,  indeed,  necessarily  involves  the  other;  but 
they  may  be  advantageously  considered  separately. 
This  second  rule  is  founded  on  that  internal  pro- 
priety which  we  have  discovered  to  be  requisite, 
— §  66.  In  the  successive  working  out  of  the 
several  parts,  as  in  the  elements  of  the  ideal  itself, 
in  the  kinds  of  matter,  and  in  the  methods  of  em- 
bodying, this  necessity  of  a  perfect  harmony  and 
congruity  in  all  the  parts  will  everywhere  exist. 
And  to  secure  it,  there  will  be  needful  a  careful 
study  of  each  part  in  its  relations  to  every  other,  so 
that  not  only  all  confusion,  distraction,  and  contra- 
diction shall  be  avoided,  but  also  positively,  so  that 
the  very  harmony  and  correspondence  of  all  the 
parts  shall  facilitate  and  help  out  the  apprehension. 
This  very  correspondence  between  the  parts  will 
greatly  aid  the  interpretation  as  it  passes  from  one 
part  to  another,  and  thus  render  the  whole  product 
more  perfect  as  form  for  another  mind. 

These  two  rules  are  more  vaguely  and  blindly 
comprehended  in  the  general  direction  that  in  all 
art  not  only  must  the  design  be  intelligible,  but  that 
every  part  should  help  out  the  design  and  be  mean- 
ing and  significant.  It  can  be  so  only  so  far  as 
this  fundamental  condition  of  all  intelligence  is 


LAW    OF    IDEA.  135 

observed  that  there  be  one  whole  to  which  all  the 
parts  are  strictly  subordinated  while  being  perfectly 
coordinated  with  one  another. 

Under  these  two  rules,  as  we  have  already  seen 
and  shall  have  occasion  hereafter  frequently  to 
remark,  are  comprehended  the  several  regulative 
principles  in  all  art  —  of  unity,  contrast,  aesthetic 
number,  proportion,  symmetry,  and  harmony. 

§  in.   The   aesthetic  law   of  idea,  as 
a.  Catholicity.       founded  in  the  intelligence,  once  more 

requires  that  it  be  presented  in  art  as 
catholic  or  typical, — §  74.  The  principle  of  kind,  of 
the  general,  rules  in  all  nature.  It  is  one  of  the 
highest  and  most  characteristic  functions  of  the 
intelligence  to  recognize  what  in  each  object  is 
common  to  other  objects — to  generalize  and  classify. 
In  all  products  of  art  the  mind  looks  for  that  which 
thus  characterizes  a  class.  The  representation  in 
landscape  painting,  of  a  cloud  that  differed  as  far  as 
possible  from  all  other  clouds,  and  showed  as  little 
as  possible  of  the  essential  nature  of  a  cloud,  every 
pure  taste  would  reject  and  condemn.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  skill  of  a  master  in  art  is  at  once 
recognized  in  his  seizing  firmly  such  essential 
characteristics  of  the  subject  which  he  treats  as  are 
specific  or  general,  and  then  distinctly  presenting 
them,  to  the  subordination  of  what  is  merely  acci- 
dental, or  belongs  only  to  the  individual.  This  law 
is  founded  on  the  very  nature  of  idea  in  art  as  a 
product  of  intelligence,  whose  highest  function  is 
thought  or  knowledge  of  the  particular  in  the 
general.  Presented  thus  a  priori  by  tho  nature  of 


136  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

idea  to  be  expressed,  it  meets  confirmation  as  viewed 
from  the  product  side  of  art.  Thus  Ruskin,  in  his 
Modern  Painters,  says  most  truly  :  "  There  is  but 
one  grand  style  in  the  treatment  of  all  subjects 
whatsoever,  and  that  style  is  based  on  the  perfect 
knowledge,  and  consists  in  the  simple,  unencum- 
bered rendering  of  the  specific  characters  of  the 
given  object,  be  it  man,  beast,  or  flower.  Every 
change,  caricature,  or  abandonment  of  such  specific 
character,  is  as  destructive  of  grandeur  as  it  is  of 
truth,  of  beauty,  or  of  propriety."  And  again : 
"  The  true  ideal  of  landscape  is  precisely  the  same 
as  that  of  the  human  form  ;  it  is  the  expression  of 
the  specific — not  the  individual  but  the  specific 
characters  of  every  object  in  their  perfection  ;  there 
is  an  ideal  form  of  every  herb,  flower,  and  tree ;  it 
is  that  form  to  which  every  individual  of  the  species 
has  a  tendency  to  arrive,  freed  from  the  influence  of 
accident  or  disease." 

This  law  is  perfectly  compatible  with  accuracy  of 
detail  in  rendering  where  necessary  the  individual. 
It  simply  requires  that  the  generic  or  specific,  the 
catholic  or  universal,  the  proper  typical,  by  what- 
ever name  it  be  expressed,  be  exalted  to  its  due 
rank  above  the  fortuitous  and  the  monstrous.  Even 
in  those  recognized  forms  of  art  which  represent 
the  wild,  the  extravagant,  the  irregular,  the  fan- 
tastic, the  monstrous,  known  as  the  grotesque,  the 
arabesque,  the  moresque,  the  highest  beauty  will 
ever  be  found  to  consist  in  their  representing  under 
and  through  these  wild  combinations,  or  strange 
objects  or  features,  what  is  general,  universal,  typical. 


LAW    OF    IDEA.  I  37 

In  the  Arabian  Nights,  which  is  a  specimen  of  the 
grotesque  in  discourse,  the  extravagant  and  contra- 
natural  only  the  better  reveal  what  is  common  in  V 
human  nature. 

§  1 1 2.  In  the  next  place  every  ideal  in 
TO  laws  of  feel-  arf.  should  express  a  feeling  spirit ; — it 

should  have  heart  and  soul  as  well  as 
intelligence.  Beauty  speaks  first  to  the  heart ; 
and  can  make  itself  heard  only  as  heart  speaks 
in  it.  Form,  as  already  stated,  is  both  of  and  for 
mind ;  the  imagination  has  ever  an  active  and  a 
passive  side.  And  the  condition  of  all  imagina- 
tion, of  all  form,  of  all  beauty,  is  a  common  ground 
of  sympathy,  of  reciprocating  sensibility,  between 
the  creative  and  the  receptive  imagination,  between 
the  revealing  and  the  contemplating  mind.  This 
sensibility,  this  heartiness,  this  loving  spirit  should 
therefore  characterize  all  productive  art.  It  will 
appear  everywhere  in  the  character  and  tone  of  the 
ideal,  in  the  nature  of  the  material,  and  above  all  in 
the  embodying  ;  for  here  will  chiefly  be  expressed 
the  soul  of  true  genius,  in  the  tender  affection,  the 
anxious  care,  the  persistent,  patient  devotion  and 
toil  which  pervades  its  whole  work. 

§  1 1 3.  In  the  third  place,  the  ideal  in  all 
Toiawsof  good-  art  should  express  the  free  personality 

of  the  creating  spirit.  Just  so  far  as 
this  appears  and  characterizes  an  object,  it  becomes 
so  far  graceful  §  79.  If  we  inquire  now  what  are 
the  specific  forms  in  which  this  attribute  may  be 
most  perfectly  secured  to  any  artistic  product,  we 
shall  see  at  once  that,  as  the  free  personality  can 


138  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

be  perfectly  expressed  only  in  accordance  with  its 
highest  law — the  law  of  rectitude  and  goodness — 
every  ideal  will  be  most  perfect  as  it  is  in  harmony 
in  all  respects  with  this  fundamental  law.     The 
more  moral  in  its  character  and  in  its  whole  ex- 
pression the  ideal  of  art  is,  the  more  perfect  must 
be  the  final  form  and  the  beauty.     Undeniably  the 
more  elevated  and  pure  the  character  in  any  work 
of  art — a  painting,  a  statue,  an  epic,  or  a  drama — 
the  higher  will  be  the  grade  of  beauty.     But  at  the 
same  time  it  must  be  allowed  that  the  base,  the  im- 
pure, the  malignant,  is  legitimate  subject  of  art- 
representation.     It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind,  however, 
that  not  the  bad  itself  in  its  own  shape  and  character 
appears  in  art,  but  properly  the  artist's  conception 
of  it.     It  is  a  most  pernicious  notion  that  the  bad 
should  properly  be  represented  in  the  highest  art 
precisely  as  it  is,  apart  from  all  feeling  or  judgment 
respecting  it  on  the  part  of  the  artist.     The  vice  of 
this  theory  appears  in  this — that  art  never  represents 
immediately  its  subject,  but  the  artist's  ideal  of  it. 
This  ideal  must,  as  it  is  marked  by  naturalness  and 
freedom,  be  shaped  and  colored  by  the  spirit  and 
disposition  of  the  artist.     It  cannot  be  that  a  virtu- 
ous soul  should  be  in  perfect,  complacent  sympathy 
with  the  bad  ;  that  the  good  should  rejoice  in  the 
evil  and  fiendish.    When  a  pure-minded  artist  there- 
fore is  called  to  introduce  into  his  art  a  foul  charac- 
ter, he  must,  in  order  to  the  highest  success  as  an 
artist,  render  it  not  as  it  is  in  its  own  foulness,  but 
with  something  of  his  own  antipathy  and  loathing ; 
as  he  is  called  in  the  exercise  of  his  art  by  the  very 


LAW    OF    IDEA.  139 

laws  of  art  to  represent  not  that  which  is  without, 
but  that  which  is  in  himself;  not  the  foreign  object 
but  his  ideal  of  that  object.     When  a  poet  or  a 
painter  displays  vice  in  expressed  sympathy  and 
complacency  with  it,  his  work  so  far  fails  as  a 
product  of  art ;  it  offends  and  disgusts.     Its  merits 
may  be  ever  so  great  in  other  respects,  yet  its  ideal 
so  far  as  sympathetic  love  of  vice  appears  must 
necessarily  detract   from   its  aesthetic  value  as  a 
whole.     Milton  has  introduced  Satan  as  a  promi- 
nent character  in  his  great  poem.     He  has  invested 
him  with  many  heroic  qualities  worthy  of  all  admi- 
ration.    Who  ever  rises  from  the  perusal  of  the 
Paradise  Lost  with  the  feeling  that  sin  is  in  it  com- 
mended, or  viewed  by  the  poet  otherwise  than  as 
the  worst  of  horrors  ?     His  treatment,  inasmuch  as 
not  Satan  himself  but  Milton's  ideal,  which  could 
not  but  color  his  apprehension  of  the  fiend  with  the 
antipathies  and  repugnancies  of  his  own  pure  na — | 
ture,  is  presented  to  the  reader's  view,  never  repels, 
never  stains,  or  mars  to  our  eye,  the  sublime  crea- 
tion.    How  different  is  the  representation  of  Cain 
and  of  Mephistopheles  by  two  more  recent  poets ! 
We  may  admire  the  power  of  conception  and  of 
rendering,  but  we  are  repelled  and  disgusted  by  the 
skepticism  in  regard  to  virtue  in  the  one  case  and 
by  the  positive  sympathy  with  vice  and  evil  in  the 
other.     The  very  nature  of  beauty  prescribes  this 
law  to  all  procedures  in  art,  when  treating  the  evil 
and  the  vicious ;  that  while  the  ideal  be  truthful 
and  be  exactly  conformed  to  the  object,  it  should 
be,  as  ideal,  ever  characterized  by  the  profoundest, 


I4O  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

warmest  loathing  and  reprobation  of  the  bad  as 
such.  "Taste,"  says  Carlyle  most  truly,  "must 
mean  a  general  susceptibility  to  truth  and  noble- 
ness ;"  it  cannot  relish  therefore  the  false  and  the 
vile.  Not  only  a  living  representation  of  evil  as 
evil  is  forbidden  in  true  art ;  but  even  a  mere  in- 
difference to  its  moral  demerit. 


CHAPTER  III. 

LAW    OF    MATERIAL. 

§  114.  The  most  fundamental  law  in 
feBge  of  seiec-  ^  production  founded  on  the  matter 

in  which  it  is  to  produce  its  work,  is 
that  it  be  suited  to  the  ideal  to  be  revealed  and  to 
the  capability  of  the  artist.  The  range  of  selection 
of  material  meeting  this  demand  of  adaptedness  is 
limited ;  yet  within  its  limits  there  is  an  indispen- 
sable necessity  of  care  and  study  in  order  to  success. 
It  is  true  that  the  material  is  often  given  and  the 
ideal  and  the  artistic  skill  are  to  be  selected  with  a 
view  to  that.  The  artist  in  landscape  has  his  ma- 
terial given  in  the  ground  he  is  to  beautify  and  the 


LAW    OF    MATERIAL.  14! 

vegetable  growths  within  his  reach  and  suited  to 
the  peculiarities  of  the  soil  and  climate.  The  sculp- 
tor works  in  stone  ;  he  must  select  his  ideal  in  refer- 
ence to  its  suitableness  to  be  represented  in  stone. 
It  is  so  with  the  other  arts.  Yet  is  there  even 
under  these  restrictions  wide  range  of  selection. 
Thus  in  architecture,  the  character  of  the  ideal  as 
given  in  the  design  and  object  of  the  structure  will 
guide  to  the  selection  of  stone,  of  brick,  or  of  wood  ; 
and  still  farther  to  the  choice  of  the  specific  varie- 
ties of  each  kind  of  material,  whether  there  be  one 
single  kind  or  a  combination.  If  there  be  a  com- 
bination, the  adaptation  of  the  different  varieties  to 
one  another  and  to  the  details  of  the  design  will  re- 
quire careful  deliberation  and  exercise  of  taste. 

§  115.    The  most  fundamental  division 
idea.reference  to    of  art  material  in  reference  to  the  idea 

is  that  which  regards  the  idea  as  a  pro- 
gressive action  in  time  or  otherwise.  The  same 
principle  of  division  applies  to  the  arts.  Thus 
movement  in  time  can  be  immediately  represented 
only  in  sound,  bodily  action,  and  word  ;  —  in  the  arts 
of  music  and  discourse,  and  the  histrionic  art.  The 
other  arts  immediately  represent  only  objects  in 
space.  If,  as  in  painting,  an  event  or  scene  is  to  be 
depicted,  it  can  be  only  by  some  suggestion  or  some 
conventional  symbol.  Accordingly  we  seek  in  the 
first  of  these  classes  of  arts,  the  beauty  of  action  as 
predominant  ;  in  the  other  that  of  repose. 
Selection  in  refer-  §  1  1^-  Another  division  of  art  material 

and  accordingly  of  the  arts  we  have 


recognized  is  into  those  which  are  im- 


142  LAWS   OF   BEAUTY. 

mediate  to  the  ideal  or  otherwise,  §§  84,  85.  The 
artist  in  the  case  of  the  mediate  arts  will  need  to 
study  not  only  the  suitableness  of  that  matter  in 
which  he  himself  embodies  his  ideal  but  also  of  that 
in  which  it  is  to  be  finally  presented  to  the  contem- 
plating mind.  The  architect  may  put  his  elevation 
and  design  in  perfect  form  on  paper  ;  his  proper  art 
terminates  there.  But  before  his  work  can  be  fully 
realized  in  completed  art  product,  the  materials 
which  the  mason  and  the  carpenter  professionally 
handle  are  to  be  shaped  and  worked  so  as  to  receive 
his  design.  He  has  need,  therefore,  in  elaborating 
his  design  to  study  the  material  in  which  it  is  ulti- 
mately to  be  embodied  ; — the  quality  and  color  of 
the  stone,  the  strength,  durability  of  the  wood  ;  the 
capabilities  of  these  materials  to  be  wrought  into 
the  forms  required  for  his  design.  So  the  musical 
composer  may  be  no  performer.  But  his  composi- 
tions must  all  be  elaborated  in  reference  to  the 
kind  of  sound  in  which  they  are  to  be  rendered, 
whether  that  of  voice  or  of  instruments  ;  and 
whether  of  voice  or  of  instruments,  in  reference  to 
the  number  and  kind.  In  like  manner  dramatic 
compositions  have  been  wisely  constructed  with 
reference  to  the  capabilities  and  characteristics  of 
particular  actors.  It  is  accordingly  the  duty  of  the 
artist  to  attend  carefully  to  the  material  in  which 
his  product  is  designed  at  last  to  address  the  con- 
templating mind. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

LAW    OF    FORM. 

§  117.  The  collective  laws  of  form  are 
Method  founded  on  the  third  and  more  vital 

constituent  of  beauty  and  are  im- 
mediately indicated  by  the  particular  attributes 
that  are  given  in  this  constituent.  Book  I.  Chapter 
V.  These  laws  respect  more  directly  the  artist 
himself  as  he  determines  his  own  activity  immedi- 
ately in  embodying  his  idea  in  its  matter.  They 
may  conveniently  be  studied  as  they  apply  (i)  to 
the  artist  irrespectively  of  the  particular  design  in 
his  production  ;  or  (2)  in  respect  to  the  particular 
design ;  or  (3)  in  respect  to  the  relation  he  is  to 
observe  between  the  idea  and  the  matter.  These 
different  views  give  us  the  three  divisions  of  the 
laws  of  form,  (i)  The  laws  of  style,  which  respect 
immediately  the  artist  himself;  (2)  the  laws  of  de- 
sign, which  respect  the  object  or  aim  of  his  proce- 
dure ;  and  (3)  the  laws  of  artistic  expression. 

§.  1 1 8.  I.  THE  LAWS  OF  STYLE. — The 
Naturalness.  fundamental  law  governing  in  this 

department  of  art  production  is  that 
the  procedure  be  natural.  This  law  prescribes  that 
the  artist  put  himself  into  his  work  of  embodying  or 
rendering  just  as  he  is.  This  is  true  style,  as  ex- 


144  LAWS    OF    JJKAUTY 

pressed  in  the  French  proverb :  le  style  Jest 
I  homme  mhne — style  is  the  man  himself.  It  is  di- 
rectly opposed  to  mannerism  and  to  servile  imita- 
tion, both  which  express  some  deviation  from  that 
free  movement  vrhich  the  nerfect  embodiment  of 
the  idea  in  the  given  matter  requires. 

Style  is  derived  from  a  word  denoting 
opposed  to  man-  the  instrument  use(j  by  the  Romans 

in  writing ;  and  manner,  etymologically 
denoting  what  pertains  to  the  hand,  points  at  once 
to  the  symbol  of  execution.  Both  terms  usea 
metaphorically  have  much  the  same  significance. 
We  may  speak  of  the  style  of  Raphael  or  the  man- 
ner of  Raphael  while  meaning  the  same  thing. 
Mannerism  is  a  departure  from  true  manner  or 
style.  It  is  of  a  two-fold  character,  as  it  either 
gives  undue  regard  to  some  one  principle  of  style; 
or  makes  style  itself  excessively  predominant  in  the 
rendering  or  embodiment. 

Servile  imitation  is  opposed  to  true 
£>lit£n. scrvae  sty*e  as  it  subjects  the  true  rendering 
of  an  idea  to  a  controlling  endeavor  to 
copy.  The  proper  way  both  to  avoid  this  servility, 
which  is  hostile  to  beauty,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
secure  the  excellencies  that  have  characterized  great 
artists,  is  by  such  a  careful  preparatory  study  of 
those  excellencies  as  shall  make  them  one's  own. 
The  conscious  effort  to  imitate  them  in  production 
necessarily  causes  awkwardness  and  more  or  less 
complete  failure.  The  disciple  of  a  great  artist, 
whether  orator  or  painter,  musician  or  sculptor,  will 
unavoidably  catch  more  or  less  of  the  peculiarities 


LAW    OF   FORM.  145 

of  his  master.  He  can  only  reach  the  standard  of 
a  true  style  by  so  possessing  himself  of  them  as  to 
be  entirely  unconscious  of  their  presence  when  pro- 
ducing. 

§  1 19.  Style  being,  in  a  just  sense,  the 
cShoSintrand  man  nimself  and  hence  having  for  its 

first  and  fundamental  law  that  it  be 
natural,  that  it  express  ever  the  producing  artist 
himself,  will  of  course  be  variously  characterized  by 
the  various  degrees  and  modes  in  which  personal 
traits  and  qualities  are  combined.  The  style  of 
every  artist  must  more  or  less  reveal  his  own 
personal  nature  and  character.  We  accordingly 
find  style  modified  by  these  personal  diversities. 
As  art  should  ever  aim  at  perfection  it  is  a  law  of 
style  in  every  art  that  it  should,  as  far  as  may  be, 
reveal  a  perfect  soul — perfect  in  intelligence,  in 
feeling,  in  power  and  freedom. 

In  respect  of  intellectual  perfection,  style  should 
be  truthful,  be  in  propriety  and  fitness,  and  be 
catholic.  We  characterize  a  style  or  manner  that 
is  faulty  in  these  several  particulars,  as  false,  as  un- 
couth and  indecorous,  or  as  grotesque  and  mon- 
strous. The  artist  appears  false  to  his  nature  ;  as 
a  double-minded  man,  a  man  of  duplicity,  whose 
characteristics  we  cannot  harmonize  into  a  true  souL 
Or  he  appears  in  disharmony  with  other  things  and 
with  conditions  or  circumstances  around  him,  and 
irreconcilable  with  his  aims  or  objects.  Or  he  is  a 
kind  of  artistic  monster  whom  we  cannot  place  in 
the  class  of  rational  artists.  Farther,  intellectual 
richness  or  barrenness  will  reveal  itself  in  style.  One 


146  LAWS   OF    BEAUTY. 

artist  is  full  of  idea ;  another  rendering  the  same 
object  will  appear  barren  and  empty.  The  one  style 
captivates  ;  the  other  repels. 

§  1 20.  In  respect  to  emotive  perfection, 
Sympathy.  style  should  be  characterized  as  sym- 

pathetic. A  warm  loving  heart  should 
pour  itself  out  into  the  work.  Well  has  Ruskin 
observed  in  regard  to  the  art  of  language,  that  the 
"secret  of  language  is  the  secret  of  sympathy,  and 
its  full  charm  is  possible  only  to  the  gentle."  The 
same  principle  holds  true  of  every  art.  The  artist 
should  have  a  loving  heart  for  his  work  — for  his  idea 
that  he  is  to  render,  for  the  object  he  seeks  in  ren- 
dering, for  the  souls  that  he  addresses  in  his  art. 
Even  in  painting  if  the  soul  of  the  artist  has 
no  capacity  of  being  kindled  into  an  intensive  glow 
as  he  thinks  of  those  who  may  contemplate  his  pro- 
duct, his  cold  unsympathizing  style  will  mar  his 
work. 

§  121.  In  like  manner  in  respect  to  the 
Grace.  expression  of  power  and  freedom,  style 

should  be  characterized  as  graceful. 
It  is  the  grace  marking  the  handling  of  an  idea, 
the  incorporating  of  it  in  the  matter,  that  consti- 
tutes the  charm  of  many  a.  work  of  art ;  it  is  not 
the  greatness  of  the  subject,  not  the  preciousness 
of  the  material,  but  the  free  and  easy  handling  of 
both.  And  here,  in  the  perfectness  of  skill  which 
conceals  all  effort  lies  the  highest  perfection  of 
art ;  as  Du  Fresnoy  teaches  :  Maxima  deinde  erit 
ars,  nihil  artis  inesse  videri. 

With    wonderfully    philosophical    justness    and 


LAW    OF    FORM.  147 

completeness  has  the  apostle  Paul  in  his  second 
epistle  to  Timothy  enumerated  these  three  generic 
features  of  a  perfect  man  as  the  comprehensive  gra- 
cious gifts  of  God  to  form  the  style  of  a  true  Chris- 
tian— the  spirit  "of  power,  and  of  love,  and  of  a  sound  \/ 
mind."  / 

§  122.  THE  LAWS  OF  DESIGN. — We 
S£  threlfo°id.de~  have  recognized  the  two  kinds  of  beauty 

distinguished  as  free  and  dependent. 
§  94.  Beauty  is  free  when  the  form  is  for  its  own 
sake ;  it  is  dependent  when  the  form  is  determined 
by  some  exterior  end  or  aim.  We  have  in  this  line 
of  gradation  all  grades  of  beauty  from  the  mere  tool 
to  the  purest  form  of  art  in  a  statue  revealing  not 
any  real  being,  but  a  mere  ideal  as  an  Apollo  or 
one  of  the  Graces.  Besides  this,  in  dependent 
beauty  wherever  the  form  predominates  only  to  a 
certain  extent  over  the  ulterior  end  or  aim,  as  in  ar- 
chitecture, we  find  this  free  independent  beauty 
seizing  upon  every  opportunity  to  assert  itself  and 
reveal  its  purely  ideal  work  in  the  manifold  ways  of 
decoration,  in  divers  modes  of  appended  beauty. 
Proper  design  takes  the  given  ideal  to  beer  vealed, 
whatever  it  may  be,  and  embodies  it  with  reference 
to  the  end  or  aim  of  the  revelation.  If  that  end  be 
a  pure  end  of  utility,  as  mechanical  design,  it  pre- 
scribes that  the  embodiment  proceed  toward  its  end 
ever  under  pure  aesthetic  laws.  If  that  end  be  a 
predominantly  aesthetic  end,  where  perhaps  with  a 
real  end  of  utility,  whether  of  truth  or  of  good,  yet 
the  form  presides  and  rules,  there  are  then  the 
principles  of  proper  artistic  design  to  be  observed. 


148  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

Still  further,  if  the  form  be  simply  accessory,  not 
self-subsisting  and  wholly  independent,  the  laws  of 
decorative  design  come  in  and  prescribe  a  procedure 
modified  in  a  peculiar  way.  We  have  thus  the  three 
divisions  of  the  laws  of  design,  according  as  it  is 
mecJianical,  artistic  or  decorative, 

§  123.  \.MechanicalDesign. — As  man's 
KStufe?"  nature  is  essentially  aesthetic,  it  pre- 
scribes as  a  general  law  ever  to  be  ob- 
served that  his  whole  activity  go  out  and  express 
itself  in  forms  of  beauty.  His  sensibility  should 
never  be  offended  unnecessarily  by  what  is  rude, 
rough,  unseemly,  deformed,  ugly.  Even  the  spade 
with  which  he  turns  the  earth  that  it  may  yield  him 
mere  bodily  subsistence  he  requires  should  be  in  a 
certain  fashion  and  finish  ;  and  the  higher  his  cul- 
ture, the  higher  will  be  his  demands  in  this  direc- 
tion. As  the  true  and  the  good  are  in  nature  one, 
they  can  ever  as  well  if  not  better  be  attained  as 
ends  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  a  correct 
taste.  Justly  has  it  been  insisted  that  no  tool  will 
lose  in  its  fitness  for  its  end  as  a  mere  instrument 
of  utility  by  being  tastefully  made.  In  such  per- 
fect accord  are  utility  and  taste  that  it  is  claimed 
even  beyond  this  that  a  tool  will  be  more  service- 
able as  a  tool  if  fashioned  and  finished  in  taste.  So 
it  is  everywhere.  We  require  that  our  text  books 
of  science,  which  propose  mere  instruction,  shall  be 
in  taste  ;  that  the  laying  out  of  the  matter,  the 
structure  of  the  sentences,  the  printing,  the  binding, 
recognize  more  or  less  the  laws  of  taste.  So  in 
manners,  every  movement  should  be  graceful  and 


LAW    OF    FORM.  149 

proper,  even  if  it  be  merely  to  cross  the  room,  to 
move  a  chair,  to  render  some  service  or  aid.  The 
rough,  the  rude,  the  stiff,  the  awkward,  meets  hin- 
drances which  an  inoffensive  nature  misses. 

The  law  of  man's  aesthetic  nature  accordingly 
prescribes  that  even  in  mere  mechanical  designs 
taste  should  ever  preside  and  regulate  in  the  shaping 
of  the  ideal  with  reference  to  the  end  that  is  pro- 
posed, the  selection  of  the  matter  on  which  the 
work  is  to  be  fashioned,  and  the  whole  elaboration 
of  the  design  to  its  last  finish.  Taste  must  yield  to 
the  end  or  aim ;  but  except  where  overborne  by 
that  should  assert  its  right  to  rule. 

§  124.  2.  Artistic  Design. — The  artist, 
hs^atur^8'211'  as  distinguished  from  the  mere  me- 
chanic, is  governed  predominantly  by 
the  form  and  seeks  that  for  its  own  sake.  But  when 
it  is  said  that  in  free  art  the  form  rules,  this  can 
never  be  understood  absolutely.  Even  in  the  freest 
of  arts,  sculpture  and  music,  the  artist  can  never 
wholly  extinguish  in  himself  the  idea  that  form  is 
for  mind  as  well  as  of  mind  ;  that  his  creation  is  for 
his  own  contemplating  spirit  if  not  also  for  others  ; 
and  his  production  will  ever  be  modified  by  this 
reference  to  its  being  an  object  for  contemplation. 
He  will  work  to  please  himself;  to  satisfy  his  own 
ideal  ;  but  this  very  aim  so  far  will  modify  from 
that  perfectly  free  creation  which  results  when  idea 
forms  itself  in  matter  with  no  reference  whatever  to 
any  contemplation. 

But  farther,  there  are. arts  which  we  recognize  as 
free,  although  they  necessarily  govern  themselves 


I5O  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

by  a  reference  to  an  end  that  is  beyond  the  de- 
mands of  the  mere  form.  They  are  often  thus  only 
comparatively  free.  The  ulterior  end,  as  of  shelter 
in  architecture,  of  instruction  in  didactic  poetry,  is 
admitted  to  govern  but  so  subordinately,  that  in 
contemplating  we  give  relatively  less  heed  to  that. 
The  form  is  predominant  in  our  attention.  We 
find  here  as  everywhere  the  grand  truth  that  our 
aesthetic  nature  is  one  and  inseparable  with  our 
moral  and  intelligent  nature  although  not  in  thought 
indistinguishable  from  it.  For  study,  for  improve- 
ment and  culture,  and  for  practice  and  execution, 
our  finite  nature  requires,  as  the  nature  of  the  case 
permits,  that  we  give  prominent  attention  some- 
times to  one  and  sometimes  to  another  of  these 
divers  phases  of  our  complex  being.  But  as  they 
are  but  phases  of  one  and  the  same  they  may 
ever  be  harmonized  in  art.  The  moral  end  may 
in  it  be  attained  with  no  necessary  violation  of 
aesthetic  principles.  These  principles  in  their  ap- 
plication to  dependent  art  only  need  to  be  shaped 
and  modified. 

§  125.    The  two  fundamental  laws  in 
Regard  to  form,     artistic  design  are  accordingly  two  : 

First,  neither  the  ulterior  end  nor 
the  aesthetic  form  should  ever  be  disregarded.  Even 
aesthetic  taste  forbids  that  the  end  and  object  of  a 
work  should  be  sacrificed  to  the  means  by  which  it 
is  to  be  realized.  A  discourse  which  was  pro- 
fessedly designed  to  commend  some  important  un- 
dertaking, but  which  should  lose  itself  in  poetic 
embellishments  or  spend  its  life  in  perfecting  its 


LAW    OF    FORM.  1 5 1 

diction,  would  disgust  more  than  an  earnest  plea 
even  in  an  uncouth  and  unlettered  style.  An  edi- 
fice that  should  sacrifice  the  conveniences  in  use 
for  which  it  was  designed  to  beauty  of  architectural 
form  would  receive  a  like  reprobation  from  a  just 
taste.  Nor  on  the  other  hand  does  any  principle 
of  our  being  forbid,  while  our  aesthetic  nature  re- 
quires, that  this  ulterior  end  in  dependent  art  be 
reached  in  a  true  aesthetic  procedure  throughout ; — 
that  this  foreign  end  itself  be  wrought  out  in  per- 
fect form. 

§  1 26.  The  second  law  of  artistic  de- 
"ebL"h!harmon"  si£n  in  dependent  art,  requires  that 

the  ulterior  end  and  the  aesthetic  form 
be  kept  in  perfect  harmony.  This  is  always  possi- 
ble as  we  have  seen  from  the  union  of  the  good  and 
the  true  in  the  same  nature  with  the  beautiful.  It 
needs  to  be  remembered  only  that  forms  differ  as 
ends  differ  ;  that  moreover  there  is  a  choice  of 
forms  on  aesthetic  grounds.  The  design  for  a  re- 
ligious temple  should  vary  from  that  of  a  city  hall, 
and  this  again  from  a  private  dwelling,  although 
shelter  from  the  elements  and  from  the  commo- 
tions of  human  life  without,  be  alike  the  common 
end  in  all.  Even  when  the  conveniences  sought 
are  the  same,  as  in  a  house  of  religious  worship  and 
of  public  instruction,  each  requiring  only  the  con- 
veniences for  speaking  and  hearing,  aesthetic  inven- 
tion will  elaborate  very  different  designs.  It  will 
characterize  the  one  by  every  admissible  feature 
that  will  bespeak  the  presence  of  the  high  and  holy, 
and  the  other  by  such  as  will  feed  the  spirit  of  do 


152  LAWS   OF   BEAUTY. 

cility.  Thus  outside  of  the  complete  attainment  of 
the  end  of  the  structure,  art  will  have  a  field  open 
to  it  for  extended  inquiry  and  study  —  a  field  of 
aesthetic  form,  in  elaborating  its  design. 

§  127.  3.  Decorative  Design. — The  laws 
i?gen°ritsvenat?rl"  °f  design  have  here  to  deal  with  acces- 
sory or  appended  beauty ; — with  form 
as  not  self-subsistent,  but  as  attached  to  other  forms 
which  to  it  is  main  and  principal  form.  This  spe- 
cies of  form  has  a  range  conterminous  with  art.  In 
every  department  it  finds  place.  In  architecture  it 
fills  up  blank  spaces  with  dentils  or  triglyphs  and 
connects  principal  members  with  moldings,  or  ends 
out  the  whole  or  leading  parts  with  capitals  and 
turrets  and  finials.  In  music  it  helps  out  the  effect 
of  simple  melodies  or  keeps  it  lingering  in  the  mind 
by  variations,  or  facilitates  the  passage  to  new 
movements  by  interludes,  or  breaks  the  abruptness 
of  the  cadence  with  trills,  or  prolongs  the  whole 
effect  by  a  lingering  coda.  So  in  all  the  arts  it  fills 
up  vacancies ;  it  smooths  transitions  ;  it  softens 
abrupt  endings. 

As  decoration  is  in  its  nature  but  appended  and 
so  accidental  form,  it  admits  of  all  gradations.  We 
have  accordingly  modifications  of  style  from  that 
which  is  characterized  as  simple,  chaste,  severe, 
lean,  and  meager  to  that  which  is  luxuriant,  rich, 
ornamental.  Decoration  is  best  viewed  as  the  ex- 
uberance of  the  aesthetic  spirit  that  loves  to  pour 
itself  out  and  spread  itself  through  every  opening 
over  all  its  work.  Its  laws  are  given  at  once  in  this 
of  its  nature. 


LAW    OF    FORM.  153 

§128.  i.  It  must  ever  be  subordinate. 
n^fe1181  Whenever  decoration  usurps  attention 

to  itself,  it  is  in  revolt  against  the  rule 
of  beauty.  It  ceases  indeed  to  be  decoration  and 
becomes  principal  form.  If  dress  draws  from  per- 
sonal beauty  and  overpowers  its  superior  attractions, 
it  defeats  its  purpose,  which  is  but  to  adorn,  not  to 
eclipse.  So  when  manner  runs  out  and  loses  itself 
in  formalities  or  smothers  kindness  and  sensibility 
to  the  wants  of  others  which  is  its  very  soul  in  un- 
availing courtesies  and  impertinent  modishness,  it 
is  no  longer  gentility  but  mannerism,  or  affectation, 
or  foppery.  Manners  do  not  make,  they  set  off 
the  man.  In  the  same  way  in  the  other  arts, 
whenever  decoration  asserts  for  itself  independence 
and  hides  or  overbears  the  principal  form,  it  offends 
against  true  taste.  It  yet  has  a  wide  province.  The 
true  aesthetic  nature  will  burst  out  everywhere  and 
cover  everywhere  whatever  procedure  engages  it. 
Its  luxuriance  needs  pruning  and  guiding. 

§  1 29.    2.  A  second  fundamental  law  in 

II.     Must     sub-        ii!  •«•••«  i 

serve    principal    all  decorative  design  is  that  it  not  only 

form. 

do  not  overbear  the  principal  form 
to  which  it  is  appended,  but  also  positively  pro- 
mote and  further  its  proper  effect.  It  may  be 
safely  assumed  that  it  has  no  place  where  this  its 
positive  effect  may  not  be  calculated  upon.  Nor 
need  this  be  interpreted  so  as  to  repress  a  luxuriant 
imagination  ;  rather  so  as  to  guide  it  into  its  high 
est  and  most  efficient  ministry.  Stage-decoration 
should  facilitate  the  effect  of  the  performance 
by  its  distribution  of  the  lights,  by  its  scenery,  and 


154  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

its  disposition  of  walls  and  seats.  The  variations 
of  a  melody  should  only  seek  to  deepen  and  prolong 
the  impression  of  the  simple  strain  ;  to  extend  its 
reach  and  fill  out  its  content.  Decoration  should 
accordingly  ever  be  not  only  subordinate  to  the 
principal  form  but  ever  subservient  to  it.  It  must 
to  this  end  be  in  harmony  and  in  perfect  keeping 
with  it.  Contrast  is  not  necessarily  a  hindrance. 
There  are  discords,  in  music  that  are  preparative  for 
a  richer  harmony.  The  comic  may,  as  in  Shakes- 
peare, but  serve  to  make  the  tragic  more  effective. 
But  there  are  limits  here.  The  contrast  allowed  in 
decoration  must  ever  rest  on  a  deeper  harmony ; 
and  the  mingling  of  contrary  natures  is  ever  re- 
pulsive. The  moods  of  human  feeling,  like  colors 
on  the  retina,  linger  somewhat  There  is  a  kind  of 
inertia  in  them  which  is  opposed  to  sudden  and 
abrupt  transitions.  Contrasts  themselves  thus  need 
softening  ;  and  in  managing  them,  decorative  de- 
sign has  a  large  part  of  its  work.  They  serve  for 
relief ;  they  prepare  for  reaction.  They  are  thus 
serviceable  to  the  highest  effect  in  art 

As  subservient  to  the  principal  form,  decoration 
must  not  only  be  in  harmony  with  it,  but  also  be 
itself  of  the  true  nature  of  form  and  be  expressive. 
It  must  contain  idea,  must  be  significant.  In  its 
lowest  variety  it  will  be  expressive  at  least  of  the 
exuberance  of  the  artistic  life,  whose  skill  and  grace 
and  insatiate  love  of  form  will  spread  itself,  like  a 
luxuriant  vine,  over  and  beyond  its  frame  and  deck 
it  with  a  life  it  did  not  of  itself  demand.  But  still 
all  decoration  is  form,  and  if  unmeaning,  idea-less,  is 
*  blot  and  an  imperfection. 


LAW    OF    FORM.  155 

§  130.    It   is   chiefly   in    reference  to 
conventionalism    Decoration  in  art  that  the  principles  of 

conventional  representation  are  to  be 
considered.  By  conventional  representation  is  to 
be  understood  a  representation  other  than  what  is 
natural  and  significant  in  itself  and  is  expressive 
only  by  reason  of  a  common  understanding  between 
the  representing  and  contemplating  mind.  As  there 
are  all  degrees  of  natural  representation,  varying 
from  the  exactest  imitation  in  material  as  well  as  in 
form  of  every  feature  to  the  representation  in  other 
material  and  of  the  most  partial  extent,  so  the  nat- 
ural and  the  conventional  shade  into  each  other. 
Further,  they  may  both  concur  in  the  same  produc- 
tion ;  and  accordingly  the  product  may  be  charac- 
terized either  way  according  as  the  natural  or  the 
conventional  happens  to  predominate.  The  dis- 
tinction in  essential  properties  is,  however,  clear. 
The  conventional  representation  is  that  which  is 
founded  not  on  the  object  represented  but  on  a 
common  understanding  between  the  artist  and  the 
contemplating  mind.  The  distinction  rests  on  the 
truth  that,  as  already  stated,  form  is  for  mind  as 
well  as  of  mind. 

Some  conventionalisms  are  proper  symbols.  A 
symbol  possesses  itself  the  'attribute  represented. 
Justice  is  symbolized  by  the  scales  in  equilibrium, 
as  having  the  common  attribute  of  horizontal  im- 
partiality. A  closed  book  is  symbolical  of  mystery; 
they  both  conceal  their  contents.  Pericles  was 
represented  by  the  sculptor  with  a  thunder-bolt  as 
a  symbol  of  his  power  in  eloquence.  A  public 


156  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

building  decorated  by  a  figure  of  Mars  would  be 
thus  symbolized  as  devoted  to  military  uses. 

Other  conventionalisms  are  mere  signs  which 
men  have  somehow  come  to  accept  as  representa- 
tive of  certain  objects  or  attributes.  Such  signs 
may  have  been  symbols  or  have  been  founded  on 
them,  but  have  lost  the  attributes  by  which  they 
became  significant,  or  are  merely  suggestive  of 
something  to  be  supplied  by  the  imagination. 
They  may  be  a  single  part  of  the  object  thus  sug- 
gested ;  as  in  architecture,  in  bas-reliefs,  a  leaf  sug- 
gests a  vine  or  some  symbolical  tree,  as  the  olive 
or  the  laurel.  They  may  serve  simply  to  relieve 
from  the  effect  of  vacancy,  as  a  simple  line  or  dash 
of  color  on  a  canvas,  a  band,  a  spot  even  on  the 
plain  surface  of  a  building  where  a  full  delineation 
of  the  object  would  be  impossible  or  too  far  re- 
moved for  vision.  So  simple  tones,  repeated  with- 
out melody  or  harmony,  fill  up  an  interval  and 
keep  the  sense  from  wandering. 

All  conventionalisms  come  under  the  laws  of 
decorative  design,  and,  moreover,  as  being  founded 
on  the  common  understanding  between  the  repre- 
senting and  contemplating  mind,  must  be  such  as 
will  be  readily  and  correctly  interpreted.  The 
sculptor  who  sought  to  symbolize  Moliere's  pecu- 
liar skill  in  mirroring  life  and  manners  by  repre- 
senting him  as  holding  a  looking-glass,  made  him- 
self ridiculous  as  suggesting  that  the  subject  was  a 
dealer  in  that  article. 

§  131.   III. — THE  LAWS  OF  ARTISTIC 
Three- fold  di-    EXPRESSION.     These  laws  of  form  re- 
spect immediately  the  relation  which 


vision. 


LAW    OF    FORM.  157 

the  artist  is  to  maintain  between  the  given  idea 
and  the  given  matter.  We  have  already  recognized 
§  96,  the  three  different  relationships  between  these 
constituents  ;  as  being  either — i,  an  equiponder- 
ance  between  the  two  giving  to  form  the  character 
of  proper  beauty ;  or,  2,  a  predominance  of  idea  over 
matter,  giving  to  form  the  character  of  the  sublime ; 
or,  3,  a  predominance  of  matter  over  idea,  giving  to 
form  the  character  of  the  pretty,  the  comic,  the  divert- 
ing, the  ludicrous.  The  laws  of  expression  accord- 
ingly fall  into  the  three  divisions  of — i,  Law  of  the 
proper  beautiful ;  2,  Law  of  the  sublime ;  and  3, 
Law  of  the  comic. 

§  132.  i. — Law  of  the  Proper  Beautiful.  The 
comprehensive  law  of  productive  art  here  is  that  it 
keep  both  idea  and  matter  ever  in  view,  and  main- 
tain a  perfect  equipoise  between  them.  The  idea 
must  never  outspan  the  capabilities  of  the  matter, 
nor  the  matter  overbear  the  idea  which  is  expressed 
in  it.  As  the  sublime  suggests  more  than  it  ex- 
presses, the  proper  beautiful  expresses  all  it  means. 
This  law  implies  that  both  these  ele- 

Commensurate- 

ness  of  idea  and    ments — idea  and   matter — are  within 

artistic  matter. 

limits  and  measure.  The  character  of 
this  commensurateness  between  idea  and  matter 
varies  in  different  objects  and  in  different  arts. 
The  elements  in  the  ideal  of  a  dwelling,  so  realized 
in  material  as  to  be  pronounced  beautiful,  the  ideas 
of  suitableness  as  to  condition,  of  comfort  and  con- 
venience, are  commensurable  with  the  nature  of  the 
material  as  of  stone  or  wood,  in  site,  in  size,  of  the 
whole  and  of  the  parts,  the  number  and  arrange- 


158  LAWS   OF    BEAUTY. 

ment  of  those  parts,  and  the  like.  The  too  great  or 
the  too  small  in  the  matter  in  relation  to  these  ideas 
so  far  detracts  from  the  beauty  of  the  structure. 
So  the  beauty  of  dress  appears  in  the  adaptation  of 
the  material  to  meet  the  demands  of  protection, 
shape,  freedom  of  movement,  complexion,  and  the 
like.  Whatever  in  the  material  goes  beyond  or 
falls  short  of  these  demands  so  far  fails.  In  dis- 
course, in  the  same  way,  the  language  should  corre- 
spond with  the  thought  in  loftiness  or  in  common- 
ness, in  richness  or  in  simplicity,  in  all  its  char- 
acteristics in  short  that  can  be  expressed  in  words. 
In  painting,  if  grace  predominate  in  the  idea,  the 
outline  and  figure  must  correspond. ;  color  that 
would  hide,  or  shading  that  would  too  feebly  ex- 
press, would  mar  the  product.  The  famous  statu- 
ary group  of  the  Laocoon  has  occasioned  much 
dispute  whether  it  is  expressive  of  physical  or 
mental  pain — the  pain  from  the  bite  and  constric- 
tion of  the  serpents,  or  the  hopelessness  of  escape 
on  the  part  of  the  victim  ;  whether  the  open  mouth 
expresses  the  outcry  of  bodily  pain  or  the  sigh  of 
despair.  The  thorough  anatomical  investigation  of 
the  muscles  of  the  face,  the  chest,  the  abdomen, 
shows  that  the  sculptor  has  most  perfectly  rendered 
the  muscular  relaxation  in  which  the  sense  of  hope- 
less despair  instinctively  expresses  itself.  That 
emotion  just  fills  out  the  entire  bodily  contour.  It 
is  this  perfect  conformity  of  idea  with  matter 
throughout  which  makes  this  beautiful  product  "  a 
joy  forever," — the  fascination  and  the  admiration  of 
all  the  successive  ages  of  beholders.  The  outer 


LAW    OF    FORM.  159 

inorganic  matter,  the  marble,  has  its  just  demands 
of  weight  and  cohesive  force  regarded  in  the  sup- 
ports and  the  continuity  of  structure  ;  the  organic, 
also,  in  proportionate  size  and  outline  of  every  part 
in  relation  to  every  other ;  the  sentient,  likewise, 
in  the  attitude,  the  feature,  the  swollen  vein,  the 
rigid,  relaxed,  or  relaxing  muscle,  everywhere  in 
exact  sympathy  with  the  inner  spirit ;  and,  once 
more,  the  spiritual  ideal  revealing  rational  senti- 
ment of  despair  and  sense  of  loss  of  all  in  all  the 
attributes  of  its  proper  nature  that  such  an  experi- 
ence makes  prominent.  So  perfectly  has  the 
immortal  artist  conformed  his  idea  throughout  to 
the  matter  that  the  contemplation  is  never  disturbed 
by  any  disharmony. 

Of  the  essential  nature  of  this  relationship  be- 
tween idea  and  matter  which  is  presupposed  in  the 
very  notion  of  beauty,  as  before  intimated,  we  know 
nothing.  We  can  only  accept  the  great  fact  just  as 
it  is  given  us,  that  idea  may  be  expressed  in  mat- 
ter,— in  inorganic,  organic,  sentient,  other  spiritual 
being, — and  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  right  ex- 
pression, true  expression,  which  we  can  readily 
recognize,  and  in  which  idea  and  its  matter  may 
perfectly  harmonize  in  their  impressions  on  our 
rational  imagination.  The  artist  must  needs  know 
how  this  harmony  may  be  observed  in  his  art.  He 
must  know  more  or  less  perfectly  the  attributes  of 
the  idea  he  is  to  reveal,  and  the  attributes  of  the 
matter  in  which  he  is  to  reveal  it.  He  may  obtain 
this  necessary  knowledge  either  by  analytic  study 
of  the  idea  and  of  the  matter  each  by  itself ;  or  he 


I6O  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

may  obtain  it.  by  contemplation  of  proper  form  in 
which  both  are  united  in  one  single  object ;  or  he 
may  obtain  it  by  the  union  of  both  methods.  He 
may  obtain  it  by  determinate  plan  and  endeavor  in 
systematic  study,  or  through  habits  of  observation 
and  reflection  may  have  accumulated  the  required 
treasures  of  intelligence  in  ways  and  at  times  he 
cannot  afterwards  recollect,  of  which  he  is  hardly 
conscious  at  the  time.  The  sculptors  of  the 
Laocoon  had  gained  in  some  way  this  requisite 
knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  scene  which  they 
were  to  represent,  of  the  characters  and  the  passion 
in  all  its  intrinsic  features  which  predominates  in 
them  ;  of  the  nature  of  the  different  forms  of  mat- 
ter in  which  this  passion  was  to  be  embodied,  the 
physical  frame  and  the  whole  condition  of  mind  and 
soul  in  which  such  a  passion  finds  place.  They 
must  have  acquired  all  this  knowledge  and  then 
they  must  have  kept  in  all  the  execution  of  their 
design  the  attributes  of  all  these  elements  so  in  mind 
that  the  idea  should  just  fill  out  the  matter  every- 
where. One  unintelligent  stroke  of  the  chisel  that 
should  take  off  more  of  the  marble  than  the  idea  re- 
quired in  order  to  its  full  expression,  or  one  chipping 
less  than  was  needful  for  this,  would  have  been  fatal. 
Exact  equipoise  between  idea  and  matter  through- 
out, perfect  harmony  between  them  is  the  compre- 
hensive law  of  artistic  expression  in  all  proper  beauty, 

§  133.  2.  Law  of  the  Sublime. — In 
Sctetouiawme$ub"  productive  art,  law  here  can  respect 

only  representative,  not  properly  natu- 
ral form — the  sublime  of  ideal  not  of  idea.  The 


LAW    OF    FORM.  l6l 

natural  sublime  in  which  the  idea  reveals  itself  over- 
powering the  matter,  so  far  as  it  is  of  human  pro- 
duction, is  well  nigh  above  law,  or  better,  perhaps, 
is  a  law  in  itself.     Its  very  characteristic  is  that  it 
bursts  forth  impetuously,  outswelling  all  the  fixed 
channels  of  expression.     Yet  the  sublime  is  ever  of 
a  rational  origin  and  partakes  of  a  rational  nature. 
It  can  never  forget  all  law.     Its  outgoings  will  be 
in  a  true  order  and  under  a  determinate  law.     In 
other  words,  the  sublime  is  in  the  realm  of  form, 
and  must  never  ignore  or  belie  its  nature.     It  is 
akin  to  proper  beauty,  and  may  be — as,  in  fact,  it 
ever  is — closely  associated  with  it.     Eloquence,  that 
in  the  greatness  of  its  passion  overbears  the  ordi- 
nary forms  of  discourse  and  utters  itself  in  broken 
words,  in  disconnected  sentences,  yet  keeps  itself, 
as  if  by  an  internal  guide,  ever  within  a  certain 
range  of  order,  one  step  beyond  which  would  plunge 
it  into  the  depths  of  the  ridiculous.     Its  sublime  is 
ever  but  an  upheaval  from  a  plane  of  beauty.     So 
the  sublime  of  heroism,  of  noble  daring,  of  magnan- 
imous self-sacrifice  and  devotion,  of  grand  achieve- 
ment, has  a  law  of  its  own  which  has  grown  up  in 
its  growth.     Ceasing  to  be   rational,   it   becomes 
brutish ;  and  the  brute  can  reveal  the  sublime  only 
as  the  idea  of  its  creator  grandly  displays  itself  in 
it,  as  it  does  also  in  the  forms  of  inorganic  nature. 
The  human  sublime  must  ever  be  rational,  orderly, 
and  conformed  to  law,  or  it  ceases  to  be  human. 
The  only  laws  of  the  natural  sublime 

Its     conditions  :  ...  . 

Subject    to    are  either  that  which  regards  its  growth 
and   development,    or   that   which  re- 


1 62  LAWS   OF   BEAUTY. 

quires  its  outworking  to  be  in  the  line  of  beauty. 
To  be  sublime  in  thought,  in  feeling,  in  action,  the 
first  grand  condition  is  to  feed  and  train  up  the 

spirit  to  its  fullest,  largest  capacity. 
n.  TO  form.  Only  the  great  soul  can  be  sublime  in 

its  utterances.  And  the  second  condi- 
tion is,  that  its  utterances  be  in  perfect  form.  The 
sublime  awes,  indeed,  but  attracts  also  ;  never  re- 
pels or  wounds  the  tenderest  sensibility.  It  falls 
as  readily  and  as  gently  upon  the  imagination  or 
the  capacity  of  form  as  proper  beauty  itself. 

§  134.    It  is  the  representation  of  the 

Artistic  represen-  »««•«. 

tation  of  the  nat-    naturally  sublime  to  which  the  laws  of 

urally  sublime.  . 

the  sublime  in  productive  art  more  im- 
mediately apply.  They  are  comprehensively  two 
as  they  respect :  (i).  The  idealizing,  or  (2)  the 
proper  representing  part  of  the  procedure. 

(i).  The  very  principle  by  which  form 
ideaiL'fng.1**  °f  *s  distinguished  into  the  sublime,  the 

beautiful,  and  the  comic,  is  quantita- 
tive ;  and  consequently  the  sublime  is  ever  charac- 
terized in  terms  of  quantity.  It  is  the  great,  the 
vast,  the  infinite.  But  quantity  is  external  or  inter- 
nal ;  quantity  of  extent,  or  of  degree.  The  idea 
therefore  to  be  idealized  by  the  artist,  whether  one 
of  power,  or  of  truth,  or  of  passion,  may  ever  be  re- 
garded by  him  either  in  the  vastness  of  its  reach  or 
extent  or  in  the  intensity  of  its  degree.  Power  is 
vast  in  its  sweep,  or  mighty  in  its  inner  force,  and 
as  expressed  in  either  way  becomes  sublime.  The 
ocean  is  sublime  in  its  boundless  extent  and  in  the 
resistless  might  of  its  waves.  Thought  is  sublime 


LAW    OF    FORM.  163 

as  it  comprehends  the  immensities  of  the  universe 
or  as  it  pierces  to  the  inmost  mysteries  of  being 
and  of  law.  Passion  is  sublime  either  as  it  is  wide 
and  comprehensive  in  its  objects  or  as  it  is  deep 
and  fervid.  la  apprehending  these  ideas  of  the 
sublime  for  representation,  there  is  but  one  course — 
that  of  deep  and  long  contemplation,  and  of  free  and 
full  sympathy.  No  art  can  render  perfectly  an  ob- 
ject with  which  it  is  not  conversant,  nor  particularly 
in  the  passionate  sublime  an  object  with  which 
there  is  not  the  tenderest  sympathy.  If  he  who 
would  make  others  weep  must  first  weep  himself, 
the  artist,  to  stir  deepest  emotions,  must  have  sunk 
himself  by  long  meditation  into  the  very  depths  of 
the  passion  he  is  to  represent.  The  effective  actor 
on  the  stage  loses  himself  in  the  character  he  rep- 
resents ;  drops  his  own  identity  for  the  time  and 
becomes  what  he  personates.  It  is  the  same  in  all 
representative  art.  Only  when  the  soul  is  swelled 
to  bursting  from  drinking  in  the  greatness  of  the 
object  which  it  has  long  and  closely  and  sympathet- 
ically contemplated,  can  it  stream  out  in  sublime 
torrents,  for  which  the  ordinary  organs  of  expression 
are  all  too  narrow  and  too  low. 

(2.)  In  representing  the  sublime  in 
ra^iiS  °f  rep"  whatever  object,  while  the  idea  side  is 

not  to  be  overlooked  and  care  must  be 
taken  that  the  object  be  truthfully  rendered,  it  is 
yet  the  other  side  of  form  which  comes  more  fully 
under  law.  It  is,  in  other  words,  the  imagination 
addressed  which  the  artist  is  most  to  regard.  The 
one  great  difficulty  will  be  to  preserve  the  predomi- 


1 64  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

nance  of  the  idea  over  the  matter  in  which  the 
very  essence  of  the  sublime  consists  while  at  the 
same  time  the  matter  is  sufficiently  given  to  enable 
the  contemplating  mind  readily  to  receive  and 
appreciate  it.  Nowhere,  perhaps,  is  the  perfectness 
of  form  to  be  estimated  with  more  distinct  reference 
to  the  mind  addressed.  The  cultivated  mind  is 
awed  by  the  majesty  of  law  in  the  order  of  the 
universe ;  the  uncultivated  mind  under  the  same 
revelation  of  outward  phenomena  remains  unim- 
pressed. In  oratory,  accordingly,  only  when  the 
orator  has  brought  up  his  hearers  to  full  sympathy 
with  himself,  can  he  venture  upon  that  broken  and 
inadequate  expression  which  reveals  the  greatness 
of  his  thought  or  passion.  His  eloquence  other- 
wise becomes  unmeaning  or  ridiculous.  True  art 
can  never  disregard  this  condition  of  the  passive 
imagination  which  it  must  ever  address.  Its  very 
life  is  in  obeying 

"  That  instinct  of  our  kind 
To  link  in  common  with  our  own 
The  universal  mind." 

Its  law  must  be,  therefore,  to  give  so  much  of  mat- 
ter as  will  enable  the  interpreting  imagination 
which  it  addresses  to  grasp  the  idea  to  the  utmost 
extent  and  degree  possible.  It  will  seek,  so  far  as 
in  its  power,  to  arouse  the  passive  imagination  to 
intensest  sensibility,  and  to  expand  it  to  its  widest 
reaches.  In  Discourse,  in  Oratory,  in  Dramatic 
and  Epic  poetry,  even  to  some  extent  in  the 
Lyric,  may  this  procedure  be  followed  ;  and  the  suc- 
cess of  the  speaker  and  the  poet  will  be  most  com- 


LAW    OF    FORM.  165 

plete  as  he  most    perfectly   follows  it.     In   other 
arts  it  is  less  practicable. 

With  this  address  immediately  to  the  passive 
imagination  should  be  associated  such  suggestions 
respecting  the  object  toward  which  the  emotion  is 
to  be  called  forth  as  will  lead  to  the  highest  and 
fullest  ideas  of  its  greatness.  This  suggestive  work 
will  be  the  crowning  work  in  rendering  the  sublime. 

§  135.  3.  Law  of  the  Comic.  This  de- 
Sthe  cSS0"3  partment  of  form  we  have  recognized 

as  extending  from  the  confines  of  the 
proper  beautiful,  in  its  first  gradation  of  the  pretty, 
where  the  idea  only  sinks  but  is  not  overborne  by 
the  matter,  to  its  ultimate  gradation  of  the  grossly 
ludicrous,  where  the  idea  is  at  its  minimum.  The 
best  exemplification  perhaps  of  this  extreme  grade 
of  the  comic  is  in  unmeaning  laughter,  begun  per- 
haps in  perfect  coolness  by  mere  empty  imitation 
of  the  outward  laugh,  but  which  continued  and 
repeated  by  companions  passes  at  length  into  the 
in  tensest  ludicrousness; — the  most  convulsive  laugh- 
ter where  there  is  nothing  to  laugh  at. 

We  have  here  to  distinguish  the  inten- 

Theunintenlional     tjonal     and     the      Unintentional     COttlic. 

The  latter  species,  the  unintentional 
comic,  is  either  the  blunder  or  genuine  humor. 
There  are  natural  wits,  who,  without  being  con- 
scious of  it,  much  less  designing  it,  are  given  to 
play.  Their  governing  mind  is  humor,  delighting 
in  dropping  the  serious  and  in  holding  forth  the 
mirthful  side  of  life.  Their  discourse  abounds  with 
sallies  of  wit.  Thought  and  word  each  gives  occa- 


1 66  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

sion  for  a  leap  of  fancy  into  the  diverting  or  the 
ridiculous.  Ideas  incongruous  in  their  elements  or 
in  their  associations  go  out  into  words  as  incon- 
gruous for  expression  ;  and  words  point  to  the  odd 
or  quaint  in  thought  even  -to  unnatural  doubles 
in  sense.  So  in  art,  genius  often  inclines  to  cari- 
cature that  overrides  the  natural  proportions  of  fea- 
tures and  elements  and  attributes,  and  exaggerates 
here  or  belittles  there,  that  it  may  sink  just  idea 
in  form.  The  humorous  by  indulgence  and  by 
training  becomes  a  secoud  nature. 

Of  the  intentional  comic,  we  have  the 
Jomintentional  two  distinctions  of  the  original  and 
represented.  The  original  humorist 
does  not  blunder,  does  not  fail  in  force  or  justness 
of  idea.  In  representing,  the  comic  artist  takes 
for  his  idea  the  blundering,  the  silly,  the  vicious, 
and  renders  that  in  diverting  form.  The  comic  el- 
ement may  be  in  the  ideal,  or  in  the  matter,  or  in 
the  rendering,  or  throughout.  It  may  in  part  be 
comic  and  in  part  serious.  Ridicule  on  one  side 
passes  readily  into  satire.  The  epigram  diverts  or 
wounds  ;  it  is  humorous  or  sarcastic,  according  as 
the  design  is  seen  to  be  serious  censure  or  playful 
entertainment.  The  comic  does  not  lose  its  proper 
nature,  is  in  itself  ever  the  same — a  form  where 
idea  is  given  as  weak  ;  but  the  elements  of  the 
representation  changing  to  the  eye  of  the  beholder, 
the  form  changes. 

§  136.  Productive  comic  art  reveals  in 
its  domain.          all  the  proper  aesthetic  arts.     In  dis- 
course  it  usurps  to  itself  one   entire 


LAW    OF   FORM.  l6/ 

field  of  literature — comedy — for  which  it  legislates 
with  undivided  authority.  In  the  humorous  epi- 
gram, also,  in  parody,  and  travesty,  and  in  all  the 
sallies  of  wit  in  oratory,  or  in  other  prose  discourse, 
in  puns,  and  other  kinds  of  word-play,  the  law  of 
the  comic  governs.  In  pantomime,  also,  and  in  the 
histrionic  art  generally,  in  music,  in  sculpture,  and 
in  painting  it  equally  finds  place.  As  the  grotesque, 
the  fantastic,  it  enters  also  into  architecture. 

§  137.    The   nature   of  the  comic  as 

Itslaws:  I.  Must      ' 

not  ignore  its  na    thus  indicated  in  its  relations  and  its 

ture  as  form  . 

forms,  suggests  its  governing  laws. 
The  first  is  that  it  never  forget  its  nature  as  form 
— which  is  the  revelation  of  idea  in  matter.  If  its 
characteristic  as  a  department  of  form  be  to  reveal 
the  un-reason  of  human  experience,  it  must  ever 
remember  that  what  is  not  human,  what  is  not  ra- 
tional, can  never  become  an  ideal  in  art.  The  sim- 
ply monstrous  has  no  form  and  must  ever  defy  the 
attempt  to  represent  in  art.  If  his  desire  is  to  rep- 
resent the  ridiculous,  the  artist  must  not  make  him- 
self ridiculous  in  representing  by  attempting  the 
unnatural  ideal  or  the  unfit  matter.  He  must  pro- 
ceed under  the  control  of  the  essential  principles 
of  form.  The  remark  of  Bonhours,  indorsed  by 
Addison,  that  "  the  basis  of  all  wit  is  truth"  may  be 
extended  over  the  whole  domain  of  comic  art  and  be 
applied  not  only  to  the  ideal  to  be  rendered  but  to 
the  selection  of  the  matter  and  to  its  use  in  rendering. 
The  second  general  law  of  comic  art 
is  that  the  relatively  weak  in  idea  must 
ever  govern.  So  soon  as  this  charao 


1 68  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

teristic  of  the  comic  is  dropped,  the  form  changes. 
As  remarked,  the  laughable  becomes  sarcastic  or 
scurrilous  ;  the  playful  becomes  bitter  ;  humor  be- 
comes satire.  In  the  proper  comic  everywhere 
the  ideal  drops  the  serious  and  the  weighty  ;  its 
elements  are  the  more  superficial  and  the  transitory 
of  human  experience. 

Hence  in  the  comic  all  that  is  associated  with 
the  idea  in  the  rendering  must  be  akin  to  it.  False 
spelling  does  not  constitute  a  considerable  element 
in  true  wit ;  yet  the  weak  reason  that  gives  char- 
acter to  the  comic  may  appropriately  show  its 
weakness  in  its  ignorance  of  the  proper  forms  or  of 
the  proper  uses  of  words.  Hudibrastic  humor 
plays  with  fantastic  rhymes  as  well  as  doggerel 
verse  and  irrational  practices  and  uncultivated 
manners.  So  everywhere  the  entire  representation 
should  be  i;i  keeping  with  the  proper  comic,  in  all 
that  is  incidentally  associated  with  the  product  as 
in  the  essential  elements  of  the  product  itself.  The 
buffoon,  while  he  does  not  cease  to  be  a  man,  yet 
assumes  a  dress  that  ever  suggests  the  ape  ;  and 
the  monkeyish  plays  over  all  his  performances. 

V 


SPECIAL  LAWS.  169 


CHAPTER  V. 

SPECIAL    LAWS — ARCHITECTURE. 

§  138.  The  noble  art  of  Architecture 
Origin.  had  its  origin  in  a  pressing  want  of 

human  condition  the  supply  of  which 
the  aesthetic  spirit  took  occasion  to  invest  with  its 
robe  of  beauty.  Not  that  this  is  a  merely  embel- 
lishing or  decorative  art.  On  the  contrary,  it  took 
the  cabin  or  the  cave  and  gave  it  a  new  being, 
informing  it  throughout  with  a  new  principle  and 
nature.  The  germ  of  idea  given  to  it  in  the  felt 
want  of  shelter  it  has  fructified  and  matured  into 
one  of  the  grandest  growths  of  human  culture. 

The  special  laws  of  Architecture  dis- 
Threefoid  Law  tribute  themselves  readily  into  the  three 

general  divisions  marked  out  in  the 
preceding  chapter  — the  Laws  of  Idea,  of  Material, 
and  of  Form. 

Laws   .of    Idea,     §   J39-      T-    THE    LAW    OF  IDEA  IN  AR- 

£riTda1ny  proviv  CHITECTURE.  Architecture  we  have 
ion  of  shelter.  already  recognized  as  uniting  with  the 
pure  principle  of  aesthetic  form  that  of  an  end 
foreign  to  it — as  a  kind  of  beauty  somewhat  de- 
pendent yet  predominantly  free.  This  foreign  end 
in  architecture,  which  makes  it  so  far  dependent,  is 
primarily  the  provision  of  shelter.  Shelter  is  the 


I7O  LAWS    OF   BEAUTY. 

original  want  of  human  nature  which  has  furnished 
the  occasion  and  foothold  for  architectural  art.  It 
is,  accordingly,  an  idea  that  is  inseparable  from  it, 
even  where,  as  in  memorial  architecture,  the  edifice 
can  subserve  no  uses  of  shelter.  Still  that  idea 
must  be  present  and  give  character  to  it  throughout. 
"The  wigwam  grew  into  a  hut,"  says  Mr.  Fergusson, 
"the  hut  into  a  house,  the  house  into  a  palace,  and 
the  palace  into  a  temple  by  well  defined  and 
easily  traced  gradations,  but  it  never  lost  the  origi- 
nal idea  of  a  shelter."  This  idea  of  a  shelter — shel- 
ter from  the  elements,  from  the  beasts,  from  the 
violence,  the  rudeness,  the  disturbance  in  every  way 
of  men  — is  the  fundamental  idea  in  architecture,  and 
makes  its  governing  law.  But  this  primitive  idea 
of  shelter  associates  with  it  the  ideas  which  enter 
into  the  regulative  principles  of  the  art.  They  so 
far  give  modifications  of  its  products. 

Modified  by  as-      In    the    first    PlaCC>    with     the    negative 

of^e'sfand^re-  idea  of  shelter  assuring  safety  and 
security,  come  in  the  more  positive 
ideas  of  repose  and  comfort,  and  all  the  rich  circle 
of  ideas  centering  in  these,  so  far  as  provisions  for 
shelter  could  by  enlargement  or  by  modification  be 
made  to  minister  to  these  wants. 

In  the  next  place,  the  idea  of  shelter  is 
By  special  uses,  modified  by  the  divers  uses  for  which  the 
shelter  is  required.  This  principle  of 
modification  has  given  rise  to  a  familiar  division  of 
the  art.  Thus  we  have  the  three  grand  depart- 
ments of  Domestic,  Religious,  and  Civil  Architec- 
ture, with  their  respective  subdivisions,  and  also  the 


SPECIAL   LAWS.  I/I 

less  important  branches  of  the  art  determined  in 
reference  to  the  special  uses  of  the  structure,  as 
Memorial,  Educational,  Theatrical,  and  Commercial 
architecture.  Besides  the  mere  end  of  shelter,  other 
ideas  derived  from  the  special  uses  of  the  struct- 
ure enter  into  the  art,  and  give  law  to  it.  The 
building  must  be  constructed  for  the  purpose 
for  which  it  was  designed  ;  for  the  aesthetic  nature 
is  not  distinct  and  foreign  from  the  rational  which 
ever  prescribes  an  end  to  all  its  activity.  Rather 
it  is  itself  rational,  and  its  native  impulses 
are  repressed  or  crossed  whenever  the  end  or  aim 
of  a  procedure  is  overlooked  or  hindered  in  it. 
^Esthetic  principles  themselves,  accordingly,  the 
essential  principles  of  form,  require  that  a  building 
to  be  in  the  highest  degree  beautiful  should  ever 
express,  not  only  the  fundamental  ideas  given  in  the 
end  of  shelter,  at  which  all  architectural  art  aims, 
but  also  the  ideas  given  in  the  special  use  for 
which  the  building  is  intended.  To  ascertain 
these  ideas  is  the  first  work  of  the  artist ;  his 
special  province  as  an  artist  will  be  suitably  to 
express  them. 

reet  §  HO.  This  province  of  architectural 
dde^  invention  comprises  two  distinct  pro- 
'  cedures.  The  first  is  to  contrive  how 
to  meet  the  ends  of  the  structure,  as  those  of  shelter 
and  those  required  by  its  intended  uses.  The 
second  is  to  engraft  on  this  the  further  expression 
of  the  ideas  proper  to  the  structure.  The  former 
procedure  which  seeks  directly  the  attainment  of 
the  object  proposed  in  the  building,  is  truly  aesthetic  ; 


1/2  LAWS   OF    BEAUTY. 

for  rational  activity,  even  when  seeking  some  end 
of  mere  utility,  should  be  in  perfect  form.  But 
this  foreign  end  here  governs.  In  the  second  pro- 
cedure the  principle  of  form  rules  ;  it  only  grounds 
itself  on  the  first  and  starts  from  it.  It  may 
harmonize  with  the  first,  for  both  procedures  are 
alike  from  an  essentially  aesthetic  nature.  The 
first  is  under  the  dictate  of  want,  and  the  second 
under  that  of  wealth ;  which  as  free,  rising  above  the 
supply  of  a  want,  is  well  allegorized  as  the  daughter 
of  creative  art  and  of  wealth  — of  Jupiter  and  Plusia, 
— according  to  the  Grecian  myth.  Dependent  art 
and  Free  art  are  of  one  fatherhood  and  so  ever  in 
close  harmony. 

The  Law  of  idea  here  is  that  the  artist  carefully 
apprehend  these  ideas  which  may  enter  into  the 
structure,  and  form  them  into  the  single  and  ex- 
clusive ideal  of  his  procedure. 

§  141.    In  Domestic  architecture,  after 

Applied  to  do- 
mestic architec-  securing  adequate  shelter  and  protec- 
tion from  every  kind  of  disturbance 
from  without,  the  interior  economical  ones  of  the 
building  are  next  to  be  provided  for.  These  of 
course  will  vary  in  kind  and  in  extent  with  the 
character  of  the  family.  They  need  to  be  thoroughly 
studied  in  themselves  and  their  relations  to  one 
another  and  to  the  whole  building,  that  their  fullest 
demands  may  best  be  supplied.  It  is  sufficient  to 
say  that  there  is  here  a  work  ot  inventive  art  to  be 
performed  that  is  by  no  means  inconsiderable  in 
which  experience,  skill,  and  earnest  labor  can  be 
put  to  the  best  account. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  1/3 

In  the  more  pure  aesthetic  procedure,  there 
are  besides  these  economic  ideas,  others  that  are 
given  at  once  in  the  general  notion  of  family  life. 
This  class  of  ideas,  that  may  be  denominated 
aesthetic  to  distinguish  them  from  the  properly 
economic;  also  vary  greatly.  And  it  is  the  proper 
province  of  the  artist  here  to  inquire  after  these  ideas 
that  he  may  worthily  express  them  in  accordance 
with  the  economic  demands  and  subserviently  to 
them.  The  ideas  of  retirement  and  privacy,  those 
of  repose  and  quiet,  those  of  cheerfulness  and  social 
affection,  those  of  meditation  and  culture,  and  the 
like  properly  domestic  ideas,  find  fit  artistic  ex- 
pression, not  only  in  the  interior  plans  and  finish 
but  also  in  the  external  proportions  and  colors  and 
adaptations.  Just  so  far  as  these  are  fitly  expressed, 
there  is  beauty  in  a  dwelling. 

§  142.  In  Religious  Architecture 
S;terceSus  ""  there  is  the  same  distinction  of  eco- 
nomic and  properly  aesthetic  ideas  to  be 
gathered  up  by  careful  study  and  to  be  harmonized 
into  one  ideal  of  the  structure.  The  economic 
ideas  vary  from  those  in  domestic  architecture  in 
kind  and  in  extent,  as  the  family  differs  from  the 
worshiping  assembly.  The  aesthetic  ideas  of  se- 
clusion from  secular  pursuits,  of  purity,  sanctity, 
reverence,  joyous  confidence,  holy  aspiration,  with 
those  gathering  round  the  special  needs  of  conven- 
ience for  all  the  uses  of  the  structure,  of  physical 
comfort,  and  protection  as  well  as  of  mental  tran- 
quillity and  freedom,  may  find  free  expression  here 
and  so  constitute  an  ideal  which  will  satisfy  all  the 
demands  of  aesthetic  form. 


1/4  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 


To  civil  architec- 
ture. 


§  143.  Civil  Architecture  comprises 
several  departments,  each  having  its 
characteristic  ideas,  both  economic  and 
artistic.  Of  these  the  more  prominent  are  those 
for  proper  political  uses,  as  those  pertaining  to  the 
Legislative,  the  Judicial,  and  the  Administrative 
functions.  In  the  latter  department  lie  two  leading 
branches  of  the  art — Military  and  Naval  Architect- 
ure. While  in  these  two  last  named,  the  economic 
ideas  more  predominate,  the  wealth  and  greatness 
of  a  nation  may  more  appropriately  find  free  expres- 
sion in  Legislative  Halls,  in  Judicial  structures  and 
the  buildings  designed  for  the  various  uses  of  civil 
administration.  The  function  of  the  artist  here  is 
to  make  himself  master  of  all  the  specific  needs  of 
the  structure,  and  then  to  give  free  expression  to  the 
full  extent  of  his  means  to  those  ideas  that  cluster 
about  a  nation  and  about  that  particular  department 
of  the  national  life  whose  demands  the  building  is 
to  meet.  His  work  is  not  a  blind  groping  for 
aesthetic  ideas  to  express ;  nor  an  unquestioning 
obedience  to  the  dictates  of  caprice  or  individual 
feeling.  The  aesthetic  ideas  lie  all  within  the 
range  of  the  relationship  of  the  building  to  its 
special  uses  and  to  the  character  of  the  national  life. 
His  one  ideal  will  be  composed  of  the  ideas  thus 
given  him.  It  may  be  his  duty  to  select ;  to  give 
more  exclusive  prominence  to  one  than  to  another 
of  such  aesthetic  ideas.  But  his  work  is  a  purely 
rational  one,  not  one  that  is  blind  and  at  hap-hazard. 
There  are  no  ideas  of  beauty  which 

All  ideas  so  far  as  ,  .  1  ,     • 

tegardedin  form,    may   be   taken   up   and  wrought  into 

ideas    of  beauty.  -     , 

a  building,  outside  of  those   that  are 


SPECIAL   LAWS.  175 

given  in  tne  relationships  mentioned.  These  are 
the  only  ideas  of  beauty  for  use  here.  They  be- 
conv  aesthetic  by  being  suitably  expressed.  The 
enumeration  of  ideas  "conveyable  by  art" — the 
ideas  01  power,  imitation,  truth,  beauty,  and  relation, 
given  by  Ruskin  in  his  admirable  work — Modern 
Painters — starts  from  a  fundamentally  erroneous 
notion,  both  of  idea  and  of  beauty;  and  is  fitted  to 
mislead.  All  ideas  from  their  very  nature  as  ideas 
in  solar  as  they  are  capable  of  being  expressed,  in  so 
far  as  they  may  come  into  form,  are  ideas  of  beauty, 
in  the  only  conceivable  sense  of  this  very  vague  ex- 
pression. They  are  distinguished  from  ideas  of 
truth  only  as  different  phases  of  the  same.  The 
same  idea  becomes  one  of  truth  as  it  is  regarded  in 
itself — in  its  own  interior  relations  to  its  parts,  or 
in  its  exterior  relations  to  ideas  without — and  one 
of  beauty  as  it  is  regarded  merely  as  expressed — as 
mere  f3rm.  The  evil  here  flowing  from  this  teach- 
ing r,f  an  admirable  yet  often  unphilosophical 
writer,  is  that  the  artist  is  put  upon  a  search  after 
ideas  ol  beauty  so  called  entirely  outside  of  the 
sphere  ol  the  object  of  his  art.  The  ideas  immedi- 
ately £iven  in  the  design  and  relations  of  the  pro- 
posed building  are  the  only  ideas  of  beauty  with 
which  tne  architect  in  a  given  case  is  to  concern 
himseil.  riis  work,  to  be  truly  artistic,  aesthetic, 
must  De  thus  intelligently  and  rationally  prompted 
and  leguiated.  The  vices  in  art,  the  false  taste  in 
art,  we  may  attribute  mainly  to  the  irrational  search 
after  some  lancied  idea  of  beauty,  which  if  anything 
else  Viian  idea  regarded  as  form,  in  distinction  from 


LAWS  OF  BEAUTY. 

idea  regarded  as  of  truth  or  of  goodness,  has  no 
existence.  If  a  so-called  idea  of  power,  of  imitation, 
of  truth,  or  of  relation,  be  not  an  idea  of  beauty,  then 
it  was  wrong  to  introduce  these  into  an  aesthetic 
worK  as  coordinate  with  ideas  of  beauty.  They  are 
aesthetic  only  as  ideas  of  beauty;  that  is,  only  as 
ideas  regarded  not  in  their  essential  nature  or  their 
object  or  end,  but  simply  as  expressed — in  form. 
In  other  words  every  idea  possible  to  a  rational 
spirit  is  an  idea  of  beauty  if  viewed  simply  as  ex- 
pressed or  revealed. 

§  144.    It  is  unnecessary  to  apply  more 

Othef       depart-  r  •  i  i 

ments  of  archi-  specifically  the  lawof  idea  to  the  other 
departments  of  architecture.  They 
vary  in  respect  to  both  economic  and  aesthetic  ideas 
and  their  relative  predominance.  In  Memorial 
Aichitecture,  the  ideas  are  chiefly  aesthetic  and  are 
fur  the  most  part  given  in  the  character  of  the  per- 
son or  event  to  be  memorialized,  or  in  their  relations 
lo  society  or  to  history.  Commercial  Architecture, 
as  applied  to  the  uses  of  trade,  or  of  business,  fol- 
lows more  the  lead  of  economical  ideas  ;  while  the- 
atrical architecture  may  pay  higher  regard  to  the 
more  proper  aesthetic  ideas.  The  law  of  idea  is 
one  for  all : — Find  the  ideas  to  be  expressed  in  the 
designs  of  the  structure  and  its  relationships  and 
let  these  compose  the  one  ideal.  Its  perfectness 
wiiJ  consist  in  its  exactness  and  fullness  as  com- 
posed of  these  specific  ideas,  and  in  the  harmony  in 
wh'ch  they  are  combined. 

§  145.    THE    LAW  OF  MATERIAL  IN 
per'    ARCHITECTURE.     It  is  only  in  respect 
to  enduring  structures  that  Architec- 


SPECIAL    LAWS. 

ture  deserves  consideration  as  an  aesthetic  art.  Al- 
though it  had  its  beginnings  in  the  movable  tent, 
the  perishable  cabin,  or  the  cave  that  could  be  left 
at  any  moment  of  necessity  without  a  thought  of 
loss,  it  has  had  its  growth  as  an  art  in  connection 
with  the  idea  of  permanence.  In  the  pyramid,  the 
temple, the  palace,  architectural  genius  has  sought  to 
immortalize  itself,  and  this  expectation  of  continu- 
ance has  been  its  inspiration  to  its  highest  executions 
and  best  achievements.  The  materials  which  have 
been  employed  under  the  control  of  this  principle 
of  permanence  are  chiefly  stone,  brick, 

Kind,  of  mate-     ^^  ^  j^        These  materials  have 

each  its  own  characteristics  and  adap- 
tations, affording  to  the  architect  a  wider  or  nar- 
rower field  of  selection  and  arrangement. 

Further,  these  materials   in  form  ad- 
Imajjnnation    ad- 
dressed through    dress  the  imagination  through  the  sense 

of  sight ;  and  through  this  sense,chiefiy 
through  outline,  but  in  a  less  degree  through  light 
and  shade,  and  also  through  color.  To  each  of 
these  mediums  of  revelation,  accordingly,  architect- 
ural art  must  have  regard. 

§  146.     The  use  of  stone  in  architect 
u»«  of  sume.       ure  can  be  traced  back  to  the  earlie: 

stages  of  human  history.  In  the  an- 
cient Petra,  Hebrew  Sela  — both  names  signify  *,.£, 
rock  — the  cave,  with  its  rough  walls,  was  gradually 
transformed  into  the  beautiful  temple  with  its  corri- 
dors and  pediment,  its  columns  and  capitals  : — we:'. 
illustrating  the  growth  of  architectural  art  from  the 
primitive  rudeness  of  nature  to  the  highest  forms 


178  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

of  artistic  creation.  So  well  fitted  for  permanence, 
for  shelter  and  defense  from  the  elements,  from  sav- 
age beasts  and  from  savage  men,  it  naturally  invited 
tp  its  use  for  all  these  purposes.  It  moreover  well 
satisfied  the  various  demands  of  the  aesthetic  nature, 
as  it  is  susceptible  of  being  readily  wrought  into 
the  most  diversified  and  most  pleasing  forms  ;  it  is 
thus  a  highly  expressive  material.  To  this  adapta- 
tion to  the  uses  of  expressive  art,  sculpture  owes 
its  origin  and  growth. 

While  the  facilities  for  producing  this  material 
will  be  a  controlling  principle  in  selecting,  there 
will  be  wide  room  for  judgment  and  taste  in  selec- 
tion furnished  in  the  different  characters  of  hard- 
ness, resistance  to  elements,  susceptibility  of  cleav- 
age and  delicate  chiseling,  of  color  also,  which  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  rock  possess.  Each  kind  has  its 
own  characteristic  expression,  and  consequently 
each  its  peculiar  adaptation  to  the  different  depart- 
ments of  architecture.  There  is  moreover  a  possi- 
bility of  combination  of  different  kinds  of  rock  in 
the  same  structure,  either  by  appropriating  one 
kind  to  one  part  or  use  and  another  kind  to  another, 
or  by  combining  two  or  more  kinds  in  the  same 
part 

§  147.  The  use  of  brick,  either  of  clay 
or  Brick,  simply  baked  in  the  sun  (adobe)  or 

hardened  by  artificial  heat  melting  its 
mere  fusible  ingredients,  and  molded  into  conven- 
ient size  and  shape,  can  also  be  traced  back  to  ante- 
historic  times.  Unlike  the  other  architectural  ma- 
terials — stone,  wood,  and  iron — it  enters  but  little 


SPECIAL   LAWS.  1/9 

into  free  art,  inasmuch  as  it  has  but  a  very  feeble 
expressive  power.  ./Esthetic  art  accepts  it  as  a 
condition  but  not  as  its  best  and  most  perfect  in- 
strument as  means  of  expression,  and  builds  on  or 
over  it,  covering  it  from  view.  * 

§  148.  Wood  was  likewise  ever  a  com- 
or  wood.  mon  material  in  building.  Its  peculiar 

properties  as  such  material,  to  a  great 
extent  determined  the  leading  features  of  Grecian 
architecture,  as  seen  in  the  column,  the  architrave, 
and  the  roof.  Its  liability  to  decay  naturally  in- 
vites the  use  of  paint  as  a  protective,  and  thus  leads 
to  the  artistic  study  and  use  of  architectural  coloring. 

§  149.  Iron  has  but  recently  been  em- 
of  iron.  ployed  to  any  considerable  extent  in 

building.  Its  hardness,  strength,  per- 
manence, capability  of  being  molded  into  desira- 
ble forms,  as  well  as  considerations  of  economy? 
have  been  its  leading  recommendations.  It  is  well 
adapted  to  express  ideas  of  this  class.  Mr.  Ruskin, 
indeed,  maintains  "  that  true  architecture  does  not 
admit  iron  as  a  constructive  material."  But  he 
finds  it  difficult  to  justify  the  sweeping  principle, 
and  after  allowing  exception  after  exception,  finally 
comes  to  think  "that  metals  may  be  used  as  a 
cement  but  not  as  a  support."  Yet  his  allowed  ex- 
ceptions are  in  part  violations  of  this  restricted 
rule.  But  although  nature  does  not  shelter  with 
artificial  iron  as  she  does  with  her  stone  grottoes 
and  her  windfall  cabins  of  wood,  and  therefore  iron 
structures  are  no  imitation  of  what  is  found  in  na- 
ture, yet  we  may  rather  suspect  the  correctness  of 


ISO  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

the  principle  that  art  must  ever  be  such  imitation 
than  accept  the  inconsistencies  into  which  its  earnest 
advocate  is  driven.  Far  more  justly  does  Mr.  Fergus- 
son  maintain  that  "  in  none  of  its  stages  is  imitation 
an  element  of  composition ;  no  true  building  ever 
was  designed  to  look  like  any  thing  in  either  the 
animal,  vegetable,  or  mineral  kingdoms."  The  sim- 
ple question  is :  can  iron  represent  fitly  to  us  any 
idea?  If  so,  it  must  so  far  be  admitted  to  be  a 
proper  aesthetic  material. 

§  1 50.  As  it  is  chiefly  through  outline 
Oo.iUt.  that  architecture  addresses  the  imagi- 

nation, the  leading  principles  of  the 
art,  so  far  as  they  regard  the  material,  will  chiefly 
respect  the  effect  of  figure.  Hence  the  more  capital 
rules  of  the  art  look  to  lines  as  continuous  or  bro- 
kers, as  straight  or  curved ;  to  surfaces  as  geomet- 
rically regular  and  complete  or  otherwise ;  to  dimen- 
sions and  proportions. 

§  151.  The  effect  of  light  and  shade 
Lig-imdshade.  must  also  be  carefully  studied  in  the 
whole  architectural  design.  The  parts 
whtch  although  necessary  are  yet  not  so  conducive 
to  artistic  expression  will  need  to  be  thrown  back 
or  even  shaded,  if  it  may  be,  while  the  more  expres- 
sive elements  will  be  so  disposed  as  to  receive  and 
reject  the  light.  Particularly  in  decoration  will 
this  principle  require  careful  study. 

§  152.    The  use  of  color  presents  ques- 

Coii'.  tions  of  more  difficult  solution  to  the 

artist.     Besides  the  choice  and  dispo- 

sitjjt-  of  materials  with  reference  to  their   natural 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  l8l 

color,  there  comes  up  for  primary  consideration  the 
propriety  of  artificial  coloring  and  then  the  deter- 
mination of  what  colors  and  what  disposition  of 
them. 

That  art  should  never  deceive  is  a  proposition 
which  has  some  truth  in  it  but  must  receive  a  very 
limited  and  carefully  guarded  interpretation  or  it 
will  fatally  mislead.  All  imitative  art  proposes  to 
represent  truly;  but  its  representative  products  can 
never  be  exactly  what  its  originals  are.  A  portrait 
is  not  all  that  the  living  man  is  or  was.  A  literal 
Chinese  imitation  is  of  less  worth  than  an  idealized 
representation  of  character.  A  photograph  cannot 
in  a  front  view  present  the  features  in  their  respec- 
tive projection  and  retreat  as  they  are  partially 
represented  in  a  profile.  It  cannot  give  the  face  in 
all  respects  as  it  actually  is.  If  the  artist  color  it 
to  supplement  the  process  and  so  give  the  com- 
plexion, is  that  to  be  accounted  a  deception  that 
should  be  condemned  ?  When  the  architect  carves 
a  four-leaved  figure  upon  an  elevated  part  of  the 
building  far  removed  from  the  eye  of  the  observer 
which  he  intends  to  be  taken  for  a  quatrefoil,  a  four- 
leaved  plant,  is  he  by  the  deception  violating  the 
spirit  of  true  art  ?  Paint  on  wood  to  protect  it  from 
the  elements  is  allowed  by  the  most  rigid  advocates 
of  truthfulness  in  art.  Is  it  required  by  this  prin- 
ciple of  truth  that  it  be  so  applied  as  to  represent 
this  and  only  this  ?  "If  it  be  clearly  understood," 
says  Mr.  Ruskin,  "that  a  marble  facing  does  not 
pretend  or  imply  a  marble  wall,  there  is  no  harm  in 
it."  Must  a  work  of  art  be  approved  so  long  as  the 


!82  LAWS   OF   BEAUTY. 

motive  of  the  artist  is  unknown,  but  be  condemned 
so  soon  as  it  is  discovered  that  his  motive  in  choosing 
the  material  was  wrong  when  tried  before  a  merely 
moral  tribunal  ?  Must  art  necessarily  be  tried 
morally  before  it  can  be  judged  aesthetically  ?  Al- 
though what  is  immoral  can  never  in  itself  be 
beautiful,  and  all  immorality  as  all  ignorance  and 
error  must  so  far  as  it  appears  in  art  of  necessity 
be  a  blemish  and  defect  even  as  aesthetically  re- 
garded, yet  art  does  not  necessarily  in  essential 
features  always  reveal  the  moral  disposition  of  the 
artist ;  nor  can  the  artistic  merit  of  its  products  be 
measured  by  his  moral  deserts.  If  the  ideas  he 
represents  are  true  and  right,  if  the  material  be 
fitted  to  reveal  them,  and  if  the  meaning  be  correct, 
art-criticism  can  not  go  back  into  the  heart  of  the 
artist  before  it  can  justify  its  approval.  Even  Mr. 
Ruskin,  exacting  as  he  is  with  his  Lamp  of  Truth, 
which  yet,  it  must  be  said,  seems  to  burn  with  im- 
pure oil,  confesses  that  painting  is  not  such  deception 
as  he  condemns.*  "Whatever  the  material,"  he  says, 
"good  painting  makes  it  more  precious;  nor  can  it 
ever  be  said  to  deceive  respecting  the  ground  of 
which  it  gives  us  no  information.  To  cover  brick 
with  plaster,  and  this  plaster  with  fresco,  is,  there- 
fore, perfectly  legitimate ;  and  as  desirable  mode  of 
decoration,  as  it  is  constant  in  the  great  periods. 
Verona  and  Venice  are  now  seen  deprived  of  more 
than  half  their  former  splendor;  it  depended  far 
more  on  their  frescoes  than  their  marbles."  The 


*  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture,  c.  n,  §15. 


SPECIAL   LAWS.  183 

use  of  paint,  then,  is  aesthetically  right  When  and 
how  to  use  it  are  questions  for  the  artist  to  be  solved 
by  the  fundamental  principles  that  all  art  must 
worthily  reveal  just  idea  by  fitting  material. 
Marbled  shop  fronts  are  not  to  be  reprobated 
aesthetically  as  if  falsehoods,  for  they  deceive  no  one 
and  were  never  intended  to  deceive ;  they  are  cen- 
surable because  they  do  not  reveal  any  just  idea  of 
art  properly.  The  language  of  Mr.  Fergusson  is 
strong,  but  is  expressive  of  real  truth  when  he 
pronounces  color  to  be  "  one  of  the  most  invaluable 
elements  placed  at  the  command  of  the  architect." 
While  external  polychromy  has  not  been  completely 
successful,  he  declares  that  "  with  regard  to  interiors 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  All  architects  in  all  coun- 
tries of  the  world  resorted  to  this  expedient  to 
harmonize  and  to  give  brilliancy  to  their  composi- 
tions and  depended  upon  it  for  their  most  important 
effects." 

§  153.  III.  THE  LAW  OF  MECHANICAL  DESIGN 
IN  ARCHITECTURE. — The  Law  of  Form  we  found  to 
distribute  itself  into  the  three  departments  of  Style, 
Design,  and  Expression.  Of  these,  the  first  and 
the  last  — the  laws  of  style  and  of  expression — do 
not  call  for  more  special  consideration.  It  is  suffi- 
cient to  observe  in  respect  to  the  last  mentioned, 
that  here  the  proper  function  of  the  architect  yields 
to  those  of  the  mason,  the  carpenter,  and  the  sculp- 
tor. Even  masonry  and  carpentry,  although  prop- 
er mechanic  arts,  yet  admit  of  aesthetic  expression 
in  the  execution  of  the  plans  of  the  architect ;  for 
intelligence,  skill,  power,  freedom,  may  and  should 


184  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

mark  all  human  effort.  By  enlisting  these  in  its 
service,  toil  redeems  itself  from  drudgery,  and  work 
puts  on  beauty  and  grace.  Sculpture  is  itself  an 
aesthetic  art ;  and  the  most  celebrated  architects, 
as  Phidias,  Polycletus,  Scopas,  Callimachus,  among 
the  Greeks  ;  Boschetto,  Brunelleschi,  Michael  An- 
gelo  and  others  of  the  Italians,  were  eminent  sculp- 
tors who,  more  or  less,  wrought  out  with  their  own 
hands  the  forms  by  which  their  structures  were  to 
be  beautified.  The  special  laws  of  form  applicable  to 
architecture,  deserving  particular  consideration,  are 
those  of  design  which  we  have  recognized  as  of 
three  divisions  — mechanical,  artistic,  and  decor- 
ative. 

§  154.  The  laws  of  mechanical  design 
^WDesfi^fchan~  in  architecture  respect  the  dependent 

side  of  the  art,  and  look  to  the  ends 
other  than  such  as  are  purely  aesthetic  which  a 
building  is  to  effect.  The  artist  is  here  to  study 
how  best  to  embody  these  ends  in  the  given  ma- 
terial. He  has  the  character  of  the  material  to  con- 
sider on  the  one  hand,  and  the  demands  of  these 
particular  ends  on  the  other,  that  his  embodiment  of 
the  one  in  the  other  may  give  aesthetic  satisfaction. 

The  particulars  to  be  regarded  vary,  in 

£aterii3?8pect  to    the  first  Place»  with  th.e  kind  and  na" 
ture  of  the  material.     Its  strength  in 

reference  to  the  parts  which  it  is  to  support,  and 
its  weight  or  pressure  on  the  sustaining  parts,  its 
capabilities  of  resisting  outward  violence,  as  of  the 
elements,  and  its  adaptations  to  the  interior  uses, 
are  to  be  weighed.  Stone  supports  vertical  pres- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  185 

sure,  but  is  relatively  weak  to  resist  horizontal  strain. 
It  is  heavy,  moreover,  and  requires  for  itself  firm  sup- 
ports. Iron  supports,  and  binds,  and  also  sustains 
from  above  ;  but  its  pressure  is  heavier  than  wood. 
Such  are  specimens  of  the  problems  which  mechan- 
ical design  is  to  solve  when  looking  more  at  the 
material  in  reference  to  the  ends  or  aims  of  the 
structure. 

In  the  next  place  mechanical  design 
struTmreends  °*  nas  to  look  more  directly  at  the  ends 

for  which  the  building  is  proposed, 
while  still  in  reference  to  the  material  in  which 
these  ends  are  to  be  embodied.  Here  the  particu- 
lars vary  so  indefinitely  as  to  forbid  enumeration. 
It  will  be  sufficient  to  exemplify  by  the  mention  of 
a  few.  The  fundamental  idea  of  shelter  in  its 
largest  significance  with  its  associated  ideas  of  re- 
pose and  comfort,  is  to  be  carried  into  the  me- 
chanical design  throughout.  Then  the  special  ones 
of  the  building,  comprehending  all  the  conveniences 
Which  it  should  furnish,  come  into  consideration. 
More  specifically  may  be  enumerated,  in  exem- 
plification of  what  mechanical  design  is  called  to 
regard,  the  kind,  the  pitch,  the  projection  of  the 
roof;  the  thickness  and  composition  of  the  outer 
walls  ;  the  general  arrangement  of  the  rooms  in 
reference  to  the  light  and  the  prevailing  storms ; 
the  means  of  warming  and  of  ventilating,  so  im- 
portant yet  in  general  so  illconsidered  in  modern 
architecture,  both  domestic  and  public;  the  pro- 
visions for  ingress  and  egress ;  the  acoustic  and 
optical  arrangements  in  buildings  designed  for 
music,  oral  discourse,  and  theatrical  exhibition. 


1 86  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

§  155.  IV.  THE  LAW  OF  ARTISTIC 
its  meaning.  DESIGN.  —  While  mechanical  design 

has  regard  only  to  the  ends  of  utility* 
artistic  design  looks  farther  to  the  aesthetic  form  of 
a  building.  The  rudest  art  may  secure  sufficient 
support  to  all  its  parts  ;  the  animal  instincts  of  the 
beaver  are  competent  to  this  :  the  aesthetic  nature 
of  man  requires  that  beyond  these  mechanical  de- 
mands, intelligence,  feeling,  moral  goodness,  in  the 
fullest  degree  mingle  in  the  work  that  contrives  and 
executes  the  mechanical  support.  The  limits  are, 
as  before  intimated,  those  of  the  inventive  spirit 
and  of  means,  for  we  must  ever  remember  that  art 
is  the  daughter  of  Jupiter  the  creator,  and  of  Plusia 
the  goddess  of  wealth.  Mechanical  supports  the 
artist  converts  into  columns  and  arches  and  but- 
tresses, that  do  an  infinitely  higher  ministry  than 
that  of  sustaining  weight. 

The  aesthetic  principles  which  rule  in 

Law  twofold:—  r  r 

this  department  of  the  art  are  compre- 
hensively these : — 

1.  That  the   ends  of   utility   in   the 
endf"8' respect    building,  the  nature  of  the  material, 

and  the  mechanical  requisites  never  be 
overlooked  ;  but  that  the  aesthetic  procedure  coop- 
erate throughout  in  completest  harmony  with  them. 

2.  That  the   aesthetic   expression   be 

2.    Must   respect  ,     ,  ,  ...  f 

line,  light,  and  determined  by  the  principles  of  out- 
line, light  and  shade,  and  color  through 
which  architecture  addresses  the  imagination.  The 
more  specific  rules  which  are  immediately  com- 
prehended under  these  two  general  laws,  are  mainly 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  l8/ 

those  of  support  derived  from  the  m  echanical  side 
of  the  art,  and  those  of  intellectual  beauty  derived 
from  the  ideal  side. 

The  principles  of  emotive  beauty  have, 
Emotive  power,  indeed,  their  wide  application  in  this 

art.  One  can  hardly  appreciate  in  the 
lowest  degree  the  excellency  of  architectural  art, 
whether,  as  it  is  displayed  in  the  Grecian  temple, 
the  Roman  basilica,  or  the  Gothic  church,  unless 
he  discern  the  warm  sympathetic  heart  that  so 
lovingly  and  so  patiently  poured  itself  into  the  out- 
most details  of  his  work,  and  the  free,  unselfish,  and 
richly  cultivated  skill  and  power  which  has  designed 
and  executed  all.  But  these  requisites  to  successful 
art  must  be  prescribed  in  the  general  rather  than 
be  elaborated  in  formal  rules  of  specific  practice. 

The  elements  of  freedom  and  power 
Power.  have  likewise  their  wide  application 

here.  But  only  one  has  such  rank  and 
prominence  as  to  require  distinct  mention.  In  archi- 
tecture, more  than  in  other  arts,  the  aesthetic  char- 
acter of  a  product  depends  on  mere  magnitude  as 
an  expression  of  power — of  free  ability.  It  is  the 
vastness  of  such  structures  as  the  Egyptian  pyramid 
and  the  Hindoo  temple,  the  Roman  amphitheater 
and  the  Christian  Church,  the  immense  area  they 
fill,  the  massiveness  of  their  walls,  the  loftiness  of 
their  domes  and  towers  and  spires,  the  infinitude  of 
their  parts  and  decorations,  which  chiefly  engage 
the  imagination  and  inspire  the  admiration  of  the 
beholder.  It  is  grandeur  which  has  characterized 
the  ideal  of  the  great  architects  of  the  world.  The 


1 88  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

power  which  can  express  itself  in  the  work,  com- 
manding field  and  means  and  skill,  with  a  freedom 
as  nearly  as  possible  approximating  that  of  the 
Divine  architect,  is  a  leading  element  in  all  archi- 
tectural genius. 

Law  ?f  support  §  l  S&  i-  The  Law  of  Support.  This 
acetuauiirand  ^  law>  as  a  regulative  principle  of  aes- 
parent  support.  fa£\c.  art,  requires  that  every  part  of  a 
structure  appear  to  the  eye  of  the  observer  to  be 
adequately  supported.  Wherever  there  is  a  want 
in  this  respect,  the  eye  of  the  contemplating  imag- 
ination is  offended ;  the  building  does  not  express 
its  true  character.  Stone,  brick,  wood,  iron,  have 
gravity,  and  must  be  sustained,  or  their  very  nature 
is  disregarded.  It  is  not  enough  that  there  be  sup- 
port, but  that  the  building  show  that  such  support 
does  or  may  for  aught  that  appears  exist.  When- 
ever the  imagination  is  put  upon  difficult  labor  to 
fashion  out  in  what  way  this  necessity  is  met  in  a 
building,  there  is  imperfection. 

A  support  may  be  vertical  or  horizontal,  as  walls 
may  be  pressed  downward  or  outward  by  unsus- 
tained  weight.  Vertical  supports  are  either  from 
beneath  or  from  above,  by  direct  support  or  by 
suspension.  The  one  comprehensive  law  of  support 
requires  that  in  whatever  direction  the  pressure  or 
strain  may  come,  there  shall  appear  to  the  observer 
a  possible  support  adequate  to  resist  the  downward 
pressure  or  the  lateral  thrust.  Mechanical  design 
demands  the  provision  of  the  actual  support ;  it  is 
incumbent  on  artistic  design,  to  see  to  it  that  such 
supports  do  not  appear  to  be  lacking. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  189 

The  law  forbids  columns  and  pilasters,  or  appear- 
ances of  them,  which  have  no  base  ;  projections 
from  walls,  as  oriel  windows,  which  show  no  means 
of  support  for  them  coming  out  of  the  walls  ;  and 
brackets  or  corbels  which  are  designed  to  show 
such  support,  but  have  no  support  themselves ; 
towers  or  domes  at  a  distance  from  upright  walls 
and  columns,  and  so,  as  being  without  apparent 
support,  threatening  to  crush  in  all  below  them. 
This  is  the  negative  or  prohibitory  law  of  artistic 
design. 

§  157.  2.  The  Laws  of  Intellectual 
^b£[u£tellect~  Beauty.— The  several  principles  of  art- 
production  which  are  founded  in  the 
intelligence,  as  a  necessary  organic  element  in  every 
rational  effort,  have  a  greater  relative  predominance 
in  architecture  than  in  any  other  of  the  great  aes- 
thetic arts.  These  principles  are  unity,  contrast, 
aesthetic  number,  proportion,  symmetry,  and  har- 
mony. 

§  158.  (i.)  Law  of  Unity. — The  ground 
Requires  unity.  of  this  aesthetic  principle  of  unity  we 
have  found  to  be  in  the  intelligence 
with  which  the  aesthetic  nature  is  united  in  one 
rational  being.  Every  rational  procedure  must 
have  one  end,  one  direction,  one  aim.  Where, 
therefore,  as  in  a  building,  there  are  parts,  this 
rational  principle  of  unity  requires  that  they  be  so 
grouped  and  subordinated  that  the  imagination 
addressed,  as  itself  also  rational  and  able  to  inter- 
pret only  what  is  rational,  shall  be  able  to  appre- 
hend all  as  forming  one  whole.  Unity  is  not  the 


IQO  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

exclusive  element  of  beauty,  as  some  have  taught ; 
but  it  is  a  universally  necessary  condition  of  beauty 
in  all  art. 

This  principle  of  unity  is  to  be  applied,  not  only 
to  the  whole  structure  as  having  one  end,  one 
design,  and  one  comprehensive  use,  but  also  to  each 
part,  which  should  be  wrought  out  as  a  whole  itself, 
having  all  its  parts  so  disposed  that  they  may  be 
regarded  as  one.  It  is  one  application  of  this  prin- 
ciple which  requires  that  the  exterior,  as  in  the 
string-courses  marking  on  the  outside  the  divisions 
into  stories,  should  correspond  to  the  interior — no 
part  should  belie  the  whole  or  any  other  part 

§  159.  (2.)  Law  of  Contrast.  —  Mere 
Contrast.  uniformity  and  bald  simplicity  have 

only  a  very  low  aesthetic  rank.  Diver- 
sity, variety,  richness,  ever  enhance  beauty,  as 
they  bespeak  a  higher,  larger,  livelier  imagination. 
But  as  aesthetic  diversity  rests  upon  a  broader 
unity,  it  appears  in  art  as  true  contrast,  in  which 
the  diverse  parts  or  elements  are  regarded  as  indeed 
different,  yet  as  tied  together  in  a  true  unity,  as 
belonging  to  one  whole.  Architecture  avails  itself 
of  this  principle  everywhere — in  size,  in  form,  in 
light,  in  color.  The  magnitude  of  a  structure,  of  its 
area  and  of  its  height,  can  be  shown  only  by  con- 
trast. We  enter  into  an  adequate  conception  of  the 
vastness  of  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  only  as  we  measure 
its  immense  reaches  by  some  relatively  small  object, 
as  the  angels  supporting  the  lavers,  or  the  bronze 
statue  of  St.  Peter,  or  some  more  integral  part  of 
the  building,  as  a  chapel  or  a  column.  The 
apparent  greatness  of  a  structure,  indeed,  depends 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  IQI 

in  a  large  degree  on  the  skillful  contrasting  of  like 
parts.  The  simplicity  and  uniformity  of  a  Grecian 
temple  make  it  appear  much  smaller  than  a  Byzan- 
tian  cathedral  of  the  same  size,  with  its  manifold 
domes  of  varying  dimensions,  or  a  Gothic  church, 
with  its  multiplied  parts. 

So  the  beauty  of  form  and  of  outline  may  be 
greatly  enhanced  by  the  variations  from  the  recti- 
linear to  the  curvilinear,  by  diversity  of  curves,  by 
combinations  of  the  vertical  with  horizontal  lines. 
In  like  manner,  a  great  part  of  the  beauty  in  a 
colonnade  and  in  architectural  sculpture  and  other 
decoration  depends  on  the  skillful  contrasts  of  light 
and  shade.  The  illimitable  combinations  of  colors 
have  in  all  styles  of  architecture,  by  the  tasteful 
contrasting  of  hues,  been  turned  to  aesthetic 
account.  Polychromy,  indeed,  both  exterior  and 
interior,  constitutes  one  leading  department  in  the 
art  of  architecture. 

The  fundamental  principle  regulating  the  use  of 
contrast  is,  that  in  the  diversity  introduced,  the  unity 
on  which  it  rests  never  be  violated  or  obscured. 

Moreover,  contrast  is  not  by  any  means  the  sole 
nor  the  governing  principle  in  art.  It  must  ever 
keep  its  place  as  in  harmony  with  other  principles, 
and  often  as  subordinate  to  them. 

§  1 60.  (3.)  Law  of  ^Esthetic  Number,  or 
Limitation.  of  EuaritJiuiy. — The  eye  of  imagina- 
tion, which  architecture  immediately 
addresses,  can  take  in  but  a  limited  number  of 
objects  into  its  vision  at  once.  Metaphysicians 
have  variously  fixed  the  limit  of  easy  apprehension 


IQ2  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

from  four  to  seven.  But  although  it  may  not  be 
possible  to  determine  the  limit  on  any  metaphysical 
ground,  a  great  multiplicity  of  parts  is  perplexing 
and  confusing,  and  consequently  a  hindrance  to  the 
experience  of  visual  beauty.  Hindoo  architecture, 
which  has  manifested  a  tendency  to  run  off  into 
endless  subdivisions,  stands  in  wide  contrast  in  this 
respect  with  the  simplicity  of  the  Grecian  orders, 
which,  presenting  the  leading  parts  in  great  distinct- 
ness from  one  another,  at  the  same  time  admit  but  J 
few  subdivisions.  V 

§  1 6 1.     (4.)  Law  of  Proportion. — This 
Proportion.          law  respects  the  special  relation  to  be 

secured  between  the  parts  of  a  build- 
ing and  the  whole.  As  architecture  has  to  deal  to 
so  great  an  extent  with  masses,  and  has  to  rely  for  its 
aesthetic  effect  so  much  on  these  special  relations 
between  the  members  and  the  whole,  the  study  of 
proportion  has  engaged  a  leading  part  of  the  atten- 
tion of  theoretical  architects.  Search  has  been  in- 
stituted for  some  fixed  mathematical  principle  which 
may  be  relied  upon  to  satisfy  all  aesthetic  demands. 
The  analogies  in  the  mathematical  relations  of 
position  in  which  the  germinal  points  in  plants 
stand  to  one  another  and  to  the  whole,  and  in  the 
mathematical  relations  ot  musical  sounds,  have 
seemed  to  furnish  some  ground  for  hope  that  such 
a  search  might  be  successful.  The  results  of  these 
inquiries  have  not  thus  far  been  entirely  satisfactory. 
The  most  perfectly  proportioned  buildings  of  ancient 
and  modern  construction,  as  even  the  master-pieces 
of  sculpture,  have  been  carefully  measured  and  aver- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  1 93 

ages  have  been  taken  m  the  hope  that  the  princi- 
ple of  all  architectural  proportion  might  be  defi- 
nitely ascertained.      The  rule  of    the 
Gdden  Section.      "  golden    section "    has    been    one    of 
the  fruits    of  these  researches.     This 
principle    is   the    same    as   the   geometrical    sec- 
tion into  extreme  and  mean  ratio.     A  line  is  said  to 
be  so  cut  when  the  square  on  the  larger  of  the  two 
parts  is  equal  to  the  rectangle  of  the  whole  line  and 
.the  less  part  ;  or  when  the  whole  bears  the  same 
/  ratio  to  the  greater  part  that  this  part  bears  to  the 
less.     In  other  words  this  theory  of  a  perfect  archi- 
tectural proportion  prescribes  that  lines  be  so  cut 
as  that  the  larger  part  shall  be  a  little  over  three- 
fifths  of  the  whole  line  or  more  nearly  six  hundred 
and  eighteen  thousandths  of  the  whole.     Another 
mathematical  principle  of  proportions  thus  reached, 
is  that  of  Hay,  who  maintains  that  the 
2SS?  °f  vis"    beauty  of  proportion  depends  on  the 
visual  angle.     He  has   in   accordance 
with  this  theory  constructed  a  scale  of  angular  pro- 
portions, taking  the  right  angle  as  the  most  perfect 
angle   for   aesthetic   effect.      Mr.  Fergusson,  once 
more,  prescribes  as  the  rule  of  proportion  fora,  room, 
that  its  "  height  ought  to  be  equal  to  half  its  width 
plus  the  sauare  root  of  its  length." 
The  law  to  be    ^  ^s  questionable   whether  any  such 
idea\d  Inmate-    ^QS  of  absolute  proportion  which  are 
grounded  on  principles  not  given  at 
once  in  the  ideas  and  the  material  of  the  art,  can  be 
relied  on  to  any  extent.     The  nature  of  the  material 
itself,  as  having  gravity  and  so  needing  support, 


1 94  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

gives  one  principle  of  proportion,  viz : — that  the 
support  be  adequate  to  sustain  the  weight  which 
rests  upon  it.  This  principle  must  regard  the 
character  of  the  material.  Stone  is  heavier  than 
wood,  requires  a  stronger  and  so  a  more  massive 
support ;  wood  on  the  other  hand  is  weaker  as  sup- 
port than  stone  ;  while  iron  still  farther  differs  in 
both  respects  from  both  stone  and  wood.  The  rule, 
consequently,  of  some  architects,  that  the  support 
should  be  equal  to  the  weight,  is  without  good 
reason. 

Still  more  must  the  ideas  expressed  in  the  build- 
ing, both  the  ideas  originating  in  its  end  or  uses, 
and  the  proper  aesthetic  ideas  which  are  suggested 
by  these  ends  but  yet  not  essential  in  them,  vary 
the  rule  of  proportion  to  be  observed  in  a  given 
case.  Ideas  of  power,  majesty,  stability,  perma- 
nence, lead  to  proportions  entirely  different  from 
those  of  the  Ionic  and  the  Corinthian. 

It  is  thus  seen  that  the  principles  of  architectural 
proportion  are  to  be  derived  not  from  some  standard 
assumed  from  without,  but  from  a  careful  study  of 
the  nature  of  the  ideas  to  be  expressed  and  the  ma- 
terial to  be  employed. 

symmetry  re-  §  l62-  (S-)  Law °f  Symmetry.— While 
SFSrt/ISS  proportion  respects  the  relations  of  the 
parts  to  the  whole,  symmetry  respects 
the  relations  of  the  coordinate  parts  to  one  another. 
It  requires  that  whatever  dimensions  are  adopted 
in  one  member  shall  be  adopted  for  every  other  like 
member.  This  law  is  founded  on  the  same  princi- 
ple in  our  nature  as  the  law  of  unity — the  most 


SPECIAL   LAWS.  1 95 

perfect  reason  has  but  one  most  perfect  mode  of 
accomplishing  its  end  in  the  same  circumstances. 
No  two  branches  of  a  tree,  no  two  leaves  are  ex- 
actly equal ;  but  so  far  as  there  is  no  ground  for 
difference,  likeness  is  maintained.  It  is  thus  that 
nature  maintains  the  unity  in  a  pleasing  diversity. 
So  if  the  weight  to  be  sustained  and  all  the  relations 
to  other  parts,  as  well  as  to  the  light,  the  air,  the 
surroundings  generally,  are  the  same,  the  law  of 
symmetry  requires  that  the  columns  of  a  building 
should  be  alike.  Variations  must  be  determined  by 
differences  that  are  actually  ascertained  and  known. 
Only  as  these  are  known  can  the  variation  be  justi- 
fied. The  keen  aesthetic  sense  of  the  Greek  archi- 
tects deviated  from  exact  symmetry  in  the  diameter 
of  the  column  at  the  angles  of  a  building  as  com- 
pared with  the  others  to  obviate  the  different 
effect  of  light.  In  the  Parthenon  the  deviation  is 
one  forty-fourth  part  of  the  diameter,  in  the  temple 
of  Theseus  one  twenty-eighth  part.  But  the  prin- 
ciple of  symmetry  still  holds  that,  except  for  known 
cause,  like  members  be  of  like  dimensions.  The 
law  applies  obviously  to  openings  in  walls,  as  for 
doors  and  windows,  to  all  spaces  as  well  as  to 
columns  and  solid  walls,  to  lines  and  surfaces  as 
well  as  to  solids. 

§  163.     (6.)  Law  of  Harmony. — The 

Harmony   re-  .  . 

quires  likeness  in    same   principle   of  reason   which   de- 

like  parts.  .  .    . 

tnands  unity  and  symmetry  enjoins  also 
harmony.  The  import  of  this  principle  is  that  the 
rational  grounds  for  adopting  any  one  dimension,  or 
figure,  or  color,  should  govern  in  the  adoption  of 


196  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

every  other  dimension  and  figure  and  color,  except 
so  far  as  the  special  case  calls  for  different  treat- 
ment. It  is  in  this  way  that  the  diversity  which 
the  peculiarities  of  the  individual  part  may  prescribe, 
is  harmonized  by  the  application  of  the  same  rule 
to  all  the  parts  so  far  as  there  is  likeness  ;  and  the 
aesthetic  nature  becomes  thus  satisfied  with  the 
form  as  perfect.  This  principle,  in  one  of  its  appli- 
cations, may  be  recognized  in  the  human  body. 
Each  of  every  pair  of  members,  as  of  hands,  arms, 
eyes,  etc.,  is  like  the  other  of  the  pair  ;  but  one  is  on 
the  right  side,  the  other  on  the  left,  and  this  differ- 
ence in  position  necessitates  corresponding  differ- 
ence in  the  form.  The  one  is  not  the  exact  repeti- 
tion, but  rather  the  reflection  of  the  other  ;  the  one 
is  turned  in  one  direction,  the  other  in  the  opposite. 
But  the  whole  expression  is  one.  There  is  harmony 
as  well  as  symmetry ; — oneness,  agreement,  like- 
ness, in  essential  properties,  and  in  offices  and  re- 
lations, as  well  as  in  mere  dimensions. 

§  164.  EXEMPLIFICATION  OF  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF 
ARCHITECTURAL  DESIGN  IN  THE  LEADING  STYLES 
OF  THE  ART  IN  HISTORY. — Every  nation  and  every 
tribe  has  its  style  of  building.  Some  genius  in- 
vents what  convenience,  economy,  taste,  recommend, 
and  the  common  mind,  from  ignorance  or  indolence, 
accepts  and  copies.  The  divers  modes  of  life,  with 
the  diversities  of  wants  incident  to  them,  the  char- 
acter of  the  climate  and  of  the  soil,  the  supply  of 
materials,  lead  to  so  many  different  styles  of  build- 
ing. The  wandering  nomad  erects  his  tent ;  and 
naturally  carries  over  the  form  to  which  he  has 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  1 97 

been  wonted,  into  more  solid  structures  when  he 
settles  into  more  permanent  abodes.  Chinese 
architecture  is  of  the  tent  type.  The  rich  agricul- 
tural plains  of  Babylonia  led  to  permanent  settle- 
ments, and  in  the  want  of  stone  and  timber,  the  in- 
habitants developed  a  style  which  the  abundant 
clay  and  bitumen  as  their  most  available  materials 
prescribed.  Egypt  built  gigantic  pyramidal  struc- 
tures on  the  out-cropping  rocky  strata  that  bound 
the  moist,  yielding  soil  of  its  great  river  bot- 
toms from  materials  supplied  by  its  convenient 
quarries  of  granite  and  sandstone.  Greece  elabor- 
ated its  noble  architecture  in  a  mild,  sunny  climate, 
on  a  rocky  soil,  with  mountains  of  marble.  Western 
and  northern  Europe  availed  itself  of  its  forests  and 
timber,  and  formed  a  style  which  such  material  in- 
vited or  suggested. 

Of  these  historic  styles  of  architecture 
T^ree  leading       Qnly  three— the  Grecian,  the  Roman, 

and  the  Gothic — need  be  explored  for 
the  desirable  exemplifications  of  the  general  prin- 
ciples that  have  been  presented.  They  have  been 
significantly  characterized  by  the  modes  in  which 
they  respectively  roof  spaces  ;  the  Greek  roofs  with 
a  flat  stone  ;  the  Roman,  with  a  circular  arch ;  the 
Gothic,  with  a  pointed  arch  composed  of  circular 
segments.  It  was  entirely  natural  that  artistic 
genius  should  apply  itself  predominantly  to  this  its 
most  difficult  function  to  provide  support  for  cover- 
ings to  doorways,  to  passages,  to  compartments,  as 
well  as  to  the  whole  interior  of  a  structure,  and  to 
expend  here  the  wealth  of  its  resources.  Styles  of 


198  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

architecture  arose  as  the  chief  exertions  of  the  art 
were  directed  upon  this  element.  Besides  the  three 
styles*  of  commanding  interest  just  mentioned,  re- 
spectively characterized  by  this  mode  of  roofing 
spaces,  we  find  Hindoo  architecture  prominently 
marking  itself  by  an  arch,  not  radiating  as  in  the 
Roman  and  Gothic,  which  is  formed  by  wedge- 
shaped  stones,  but  horizontal,  being  formed  by 
stones  laid  flatwise  and  overlapping  each  other  like 
inverted  steps.  Not  improbably  this  simple  mode 
of  covering  a  space  in  a  wall  was  the  original  of  all 
arches.  Hindoo  architecture  retained  the  horizontal 
position  of  the  stones  as  in  the  rest  of  the  wall,  and 
thus  worked  out  a  peculiar  style,  beveling  off  the 
overlapping  stones,  and  inserting  corner  pieces  and 
brackets  with  most  elaborate  skill  and  rich  intricacy 
of  work.  The  horse-shoe  arch,  in  the  same  way, 
has  given  character  to  certain  styles  of  the  art,  as 
in  Moorish  architecture.  In  recent  times  the  truss 
has  been  employed  to  sustain  vaults  and  domes  with 
characteristic  effect. 

§  165.    i.   Grecian  Architecture.  —  The 

Characteristic    of     "  „ 

Grecian  architec-    Grecian  style  of  architecture,  as  has 

ture.  J 

been   intimated,   is    characterized    by 
upright  walls,  the  space  between  which  is  covered 
by  a  horizontal  beam.     Its  characteristic  lines  are 
right  lines,  not  curved ;  its  angles  are  right  angles ; 
the  directions  of  the  lines  vertical  and  horizontal. 
The  conditions  of  the  climate,  however,  compelled  the 
Greek  to  pitch  his  roof,  in  order  to  carry  off  the 
rain.     The  aesthetic  character  grounds 
its  elements.        itself  on  these  simple  elements  : — up- 
right   walls,   horizontal    ties,   slightly 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  1 99 

pitching  roof.  The  inventive  genius  of  the  Greeks 
had  but  a  narrow  scope  within  the  limits  of  these 
elements ;  but  with  most  marvelous  activity  of 
imagination  and  delicacy  of  taste  did  they  fulfill  the 
aesthetic  mission  allotted  them.  Instead  of  naked 
walls  for  supports,  they  substituted  columns,  and 
made  the  column  the  typal  element  of  their  architec- 
ture. They  developed  the  simple  flat  stone  or  tim- 
ber beam  into  the  rich  entablature,  and  the  gable 
into  the  graceful  pediment.  The  free  art  of  sculpture, 
maturing  itself  at  the  same  time,  at  once  both  aided 
and  shaped  the  development  of  the  sister  art.  Par- 
ticularly in  perfection  of  outline  and  in  optical 
effect,  Grecian  art  attained  peculiar  excellence.  It 
calculated  the  effect  of  relative  distance,  and  of  the 
position  of  the  beholder  and  the  relation  of  the 
parts  of  the  building  to  the  light  with  extreme 
mathematical  minuteness,  giving  to  the  column  the 
slight  swell  already  noticed,  called  entasis,  and  to 
projecting  parts  a  slight  pitch,  thus  deviating  from 
real  directness  of  line  to  secure  apparent  directness. 

Grecian  architecture  within  these  gen- 
orders.  eral  characteristics  diversified  itself  in 

three  leading  modes,  called  orders, 
from  the  more  staid  and  simple  Doric,  to  the  more 
graceful  Ionic  and  the  more  ornate  Corinthian. 
The  characteristic  features  of  these  several  orders 
are  found  in  the  column  and  its  capital.  But 
variations  in  the  form  of  the  column  occasioned 
variations  also  in  the  whole  facade  or  front  of  the 

structure.     This  was  conveniently  re- 

Tte  three  mem-     gar(jetj   as   Qf  ^j^g  parts  :    the  Column, 

the    beam-part    or    entablature    con- 


2OO  LAWS   OF   BEAUTY, 

necting  the  columns  and  reaching  from  wall  to 
wall,  and  the  triangular  gable  or  pediment  between 
the  beam  and  the  roof.  Each  of  these  has  been  con- 
veniently viewed  as  of  three  principal  parts.  The 
The  three  mem-  column  was  regarded  as  composed  of 
co!urmn.°f  the  the  base,  the  shaft,  and  the  capital. 
Of  the  entabia-  The  entablature  had  for  its  component 
parts  the  beam  proper  or  architrave, 
the  frieze,  and  the  cornice.  The  gable  or  pedi- 
ment, moreover,  had  its  base,  and  its 

Of  the  pediment 

cornice,  and  the  triangular  space  be- 
tween, called  the  tympanum. 

§  1 66.  The  Doric  column  properly  had 
I.  Doric  order  no  base  ]  it  rested  directly  on  the  sty- 

lobate  or  platform  of  the  building.  A 
pedestal,  however,  was  in  later  times  introduced, 
consisting  of  three  parts,  the  base,  die,  and  cymatium 
or  cornice.  The  shaft  was  fluted,  the  flutes  or 

channels  being  preferably  twenty,  but 

allowably  sixteen  or  twenty-four  in 
number,  more  shallow  than  in  the  other  orders,  and 
meeting  on  a  sharp  edge  at  the  surface.  The 
height  of  the  shaft,  measured  in  the  usual  way  by 
the  lower  diameter  as  the  unit  of  measure,  varied 
in  different  structures  from  four  diameters  to  six 
and  a  half.  The  shaft  contracts  with  a  slight 
conoidal  curve  or  swell,  called  entasis,  diminishing 
its  diameter  from  bottom  to  top  about  one-fifth. 
The  capital  of  the  column  was  about  one-half  of  a 
diameter  in  height,  and  consisted  of  three  parts : 
i,  a  necking  of  one  or  more  annulets  or  circular 
fillets  ;  2,  a  convex  quarter-circle  molding,  called 


SPECIAL    LAWS. 


201 


ovolo;  and  3,  a  square  stone-abacus  immediately 
supporting  the  entablature. 


Entablature. 


Grecian  Column. 


The  entablature  varied  in  height  from 
a  little  more  than  one  diameter  of  the 
column,  as  in  the  temple  at  Paestum, 


2O2  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

to  over  two  diameters,  as  in  the  temple  at  Selinus. 
It  consisted  of  three  parts :  i,  The  architrave,  a 
beam  with  a  plain  surface,  resting  directly  on  the 
abacus  of  the  column ;  2,  the  frieze,  having  its  sur- 
face broken  by  projections  or  tablets,  called 
triglyphs,  which  were  divided  into  three  equal  parts 
by  two  vertical  channels  or  glyphs,  a  half  channel 
being  cut  on  each  side,  and  were  placed  one  over 
each  column  and  one  between,  thus  leaving  spaces 
called  metopes,  which  were  sometimes  richly  orna- 
mented with  relief  work ;  and  3,  the  cornice. 

The  pediment  consisted  of  its  base,  the 
Pediment.  triangular  space  called  the  tympanum 

or  drum  which  was  often  ornamented 
with  statuary,  and  the  cornice. 

There  were  great  variations  within  the  general 
limits  of  relative  massiveness  and  simplicity,  as 
compared  with  the  other  orders.  The  proportions — 
in  all  the  dimensions  of  height,  breadth,  and  depth 
or  projection — both  in  the  parts  of  the  building  and 
in  the  spaces,  the  number  of  subordinate  parts,  the 
moldings,  and  the  decorations,  varied  according  to 
the  site,  the  size,  the  means  at  the  disposal  of  the 
builder,  and  his  own  individual  taste  or  judgment. 
Among  the  decorations  often  added  may  be  men- 
tioned in  particular,  the  drops — guttae — under  the 
triglyphs,  and  the  small  blocks — mutules — attached 
to  the  under  surface  or  soffit  of  the  corona  or  chief 
projecting  part  of  the  cornice.  These  mutules 
were  placed  over  the  triglyphs  and  the  metopes, 
and  were  wrought  with  three  rows  of  six  guttae  in 


SPECIAL    LAWS. 


203 


§  167.  The  Doric  order  is  perhaps 
The  Parthenon,  best  exemplified  in  the  famous  Par- 
thenon of  Athens,  built  in  the  most 
flourishing  period  of  Grecian  art,  the  age  of  Pericles, 
a  little  over  four  hundred  years  before  the  Christian 
era,  under  the  superintendence  of  the  architect 
Ictinus  and  the  sculptor  Phidias.  It  is  built  of  the 
white  Pentelican  marble,  and  stands  upon  a  platform 


Doric  Order. 

or  stylobate  reached  by  three  steps,  each  one  foot 
and  nine  inches  high  and  two  feet  and  four  inches 
wide.  It  is  peripteral,  that  is,  colonnaded  all  round, 
and  octostyle,  having  eight  columns  on  each  end, 
there  being  besides  fifteen  columns  on  each  side, 
making  forty-six  in  all.  The  temple  is  228  feet 
long,  101.33  feet  broad,  and  59  feet  high  from  the 
surface  of  the  stylobate  to  the  top  of  the  pediment. 
The  columns  are  fluted,  and  rest  immediately  on 
the  stylobate  without  a  base.  The  height  of  the 


2O4  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

shaft  is  a  little  more  than  five  and  a  half  times  the 
lower  diameter,  being  34.232  feet,  and  the  diameter 
being  6.15  feet,  and  the  capital  is  slightly  less  than 
half  a  diameter.  The  distance  between  the  columns 
— the  inter-cohimniation,  as  it  is  called — is  a  little 
more  than  one  diameter  and  a  fourth. 

The  metopes  in  the  frieze  were  filled  with  sculp- 
ture in  relief  by  Phidias,  of  the  most  exquisite  skill. 

The  pediment  had  a  roof  pitch  of  fourteen  de- 
grees only.  The  tympanum  was  ornamented  by 
statuary  by  Phidias. 

The  body  of  the  temple  within  the  peristyle — the 
cell — was  193  feet  long  and  71  feet  wide,  having 
eight  columns  on  each  end.  It  was  divided  into 
two  parts,  the  larger  of  which  contained  the  great 
statue  of  the  goddess  Minerva  to  whom  the  temple 
was  dedicated.  The  cell  was  hypaethral,  that  is,  it 
was  lighted  through  an  open  space  above.  Mr. 
Fergusson,  however,  thinks  it  was  lighted  through 
openings  in  the  upper  part  of  the  walls,  making  a 
kind  of  clere-story. 

The  bounding  lines,  for  the  purpose  of  securing 
apparent  directness  and  sharpness  against  irradia- 
tion and  other  effects  of  light,  are  slightly  curved. 
The  platform  or  stylobate,  thus,  is  slightly  convex, 
being  highest  in  the  middle  ;  the  columns  have  the 
entasis,  and  those  at  the  angles  are  thicker  than  the 
others  by  one-fiftieth  of  a  diameter.  They  also  dip 
inwardly.  With  such  nice  care  did  the  architect 
labor  to  secure  every  where  the  appearance  of  per- 
fect straightness  and  sharpness  of  outline  and  give 
the  charm  of  distinctness  and  fullness  of  contrast. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  2O5 

yet  with  no  displeasing  abruptness  or  chasm.  The 
eye  took  in  readily  the  whole  as  one,  and  passed 
from  part  to  part  without  a  leap  or  a  stop,  rising  along 
the  upright  parts  to  the  top,  only  to  be  led  gently 
down  again  along  the  easy  pitch  of  the  roof,  or  to 
some  horizontal  line  only  to  be  conducted  to  some 
upright,  free  to  turn  upwards  or  downwards,  to  the 
right  or  to  the  left,  round  and  round  with  unceasing 
variety,  never  tiring  and  never  dropping  its  hold  on 
the  contemplation.  Unlike  the  Gothic  which  car- 
ried the  view  upward  and  launched  it  into  the  mys- 
terious abyss  above  to  which  it  pointed,  or  like  the 
Roman  which  kept  the  view  confined  to  the  single 
circle  round  which  it  ever  carried  the  eye,  giving  it 
no  point  from  which  to  escape  its  endless  whirl,  the 
Grecian  kept  the  view,  ever  upon  itself,  yet  never 
chained  it  to  a  single  member — allowing  perfect 
freedom,  yet  only  within  its  own  charmed  limits, 
thus  entrancing  and  delighting  with  a  perfect  beauty.  ]/ 
§  1 68.  The  Ionic  order  was  coeval' 

Ionic  Order.  with  the  Doric.       It    is    SUppOSed    to   be 

of  Assyrian  origin.     Its  characteristic 
expression  was  lightness  and  elegance. 

The  distinguishing  feature  was  the  capital  of 
the  column,  which  presented  in  front  a  double 
volute  or  scroll,  the  spirals  of  which  spread  grace- 
fully each  way  from  the  axis  of  the  column  and 
terminated  in  a  center  or  eye,  sometimes  flat, 
sometimes  conical,  and  sometimes  in  the  form  of  a 
rosette.  The  size  of  these  volutes,  the  character 
and  numbers  of  the  spirals,  and  the  ornamentation, 
varied  greatly.  The  capitals  of  the  columns  at  the 


2O6 


LAWS   OF   BEAUTY. 


corners  of  a  peristyle  required  special  treatment  in 
order  to  maintain  uniformity;  and  the  difficulties 
were  met  in  various  ways. 

The  shaft  of  the  column  was  relatively  higher 
and  consequently  slenderer  than  the  Doric  shaft,  but 
tapered  less.  It  was  from  a  little  over  eight  to  over 
nine  diameters  in  height.  The  flutes  were  shallower 
and  the  edges  were  covered  by  a  fillet  They  were 


Ionic  Order 

continued  into  the  capital  above  and  into  the  base 
below  by  a  part  called  an  Escape,  Greek  Apophyge 
French  congt. 

The  base  varied.  That  of  the  temple  of  the 
Ilyssus  was  nearly  two  diameters  in  height,  and 
consisted  of  a  plinth  or  square  member  at  the  bottom 
rising  about  one  third  of  the  whole  height  of  the 
base,  a  plain  torus  or  semi-circular  convex  molding 
about  one-sixth  ;  a  scotia  or  concave  molding  with 
a  fillet  above  and  below  of  the  same  height ;  and  a 
horizontally  fluted  torus  with  a  bead  and  a  fillet 
connecting  with  the  apophyge. 


SPECIAL    LAWS. 


207 


The  entablature  consisted  of  an  architrave,  some- 
times plain,  sometimes  broken  into  three  horizontal 
corners  or  bands  called  fasciae  or  f  acme;  a  frieze  also 
plain  ;  and  a  cornice  which,  like  the  other  two  parts 
of  the  entablature,  admitted  a  greater  number  of 
moldings,  plain  or  carved,  and  was  sometimes  orna- 
mented with  dentils  or  toothlike  blocks  placed  upright 
closely  together,  and  modillions  or  bracket-like  pro- 
jections under  the  corona. 

§  169.  The  Corinthian  was  the  most 
Order.00"111111*11  ornate  of  the  Grecian  orders.  Its 

characteristic  feature  is  in  the  capital 
of  the  column.  This  had  a  larger  diameter  and  a 
greater  height  in  proportion  to  the  whole  column 


Corinthian  Order. 


than  in  the  other  orders.  It  had  two  horizontal 
rows  of  eight  leaves  in  each  row  surrounding  it, 
and  other  leaves  with  volutes  over  them  supporting 
the  abacus.  Vitruvius  narrates  that  the  idea  was 


2O8  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY 

suggested  to  Callimachus,  the  famous  Grecian 
builder,  by  this  incident.  The  nurse  of  a  Corin- 
thian maiden  who  had  died,  had  brought  to  her  tomb 
a  basket  of  articles  to  which  the  maiden  had  been 
partial  when  alive,  and  placed  it  with  a  tile  laid 
upon  it  over  the  root  of  an  acanthus  plant.  Towards 
spring,  the  plant  threw  out  stems  and  foliage  which, 
climbing  the  basket,  reached  the  overlaid  tile,  and 
bending  over  formed  graceful  volutes.  Callimachus, 
as  he  was  passing,  was  attracted  by  the  form  and 
took  the  hint  for  the  capitals  in  the  buildings  he 
was  erecting  about  Corinth.  The  Egyptians,  how- 
ever, had  long  before  the  time  of  Callimachus  used 
the  essential  features  of  this  capital. 

The  shaft  was  fluted  with  twenty-four  channels, 
which  were  some  times  cabled,  that  is,  were  so 
cut  down  through  the  lower  third  as  to  present 
the  appearance  of  a  cable  laid  in  the  bottom  of  the 
flute. 

The  entablature  had  an  architrave  like  the  Ionic, 
which  was  either  plain  or  banded,  a  frieze  plain  or 
sculptured,  and  a  cornice  with  a  deep  projection  to 
correspond  with  the  capital. 

This  order  admitted  a  rich  ornamentation. 

§  170.  With  these  three  classic  Gre- 
pousltenoard^.°m"  c*an  orders,  the  Doric,  Ionic,  and  Cor- 
inthian, two  others  have  been  associa- 
ted. The  one,  the  Tuscan,  is  characterized  by  ex- 
treme plainness  and  solidity  ;  the  other,  the  Com- 
posite, by  extreme  lightness  and  richness.  The 
Tuscan,  which  is  of  the  heaviest  and  most  massive 
Doric  in  its  general  proportions,  is  without  orna- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  2CQ 

mentation  ;  the  Composite,  which  is  of  the  lightest 
Corinthian  in  its  general  proportions,  is  profusely 
ornamented  and  is  more  precisely  distinguished  as 
combining  the  characteristic  double  volute  of  the 
Ionic  with  the  foliage  of  the  Corinthian  capital. 

§  171.  ROMAN  ARCHITECTURE.  The 
^r°e™u?vmcnhear.ct"  characteristic  feature  of  Roman  art  is 

in  the  use  of  curved  instead  of  straight 
lines,  which  rule  in  Grecian  Architecture.  The 
Romans  probably  were  indebted  for  this  element 
in  building  to  the  Etruscans.  Early  in  Roman  his- 
tory, in  the  age  of  the  Tarquins,  the  famous  sewer, 
cloaca  maxima,  called  by  Pliny  the  greatest  of  all 
works,  was  built  of  a  circular  form.  A  quarter  of  a 
mile  in  length  of  this  great  work  from  its  mouth  on  the 
banks  of  the  Tiber,  still  remains,  2500  years  since  its 
construction.  The  famous  Pantheon,  built,  both 
the  portico  and  the  body  of  the  temple  according  to 
Prof.  Nibby,  by  Marcus  Agrippa,  26  years  before 
the  Christian  era,  was  circular ;  and  the  still  more 
famous  Coliseum  or  Flavian  amphitheatre  com- 
menced by  the  Emperor  Vespasian  and  finished 
by  Domitian,  was  elliptical  in  its  general  form.  The 
immense  aqueducts  were  supported  on  circular 
arches  ;  and  the  structures  which  were  designed 
in  purest  beauty,  as  temples,  triumphal  arches,  and 
tombs,  also  availed  themselves  ot  this  element  of 
beauty  and  of  strength.  If  right  lines  properly  ex- 
press order  and  rational  aim,  curved  lines  suggest 
freedom.  A  regular  curve  is  the  natural  expression 
of  a  fuller  rational  nature,  as  it  is  the  result  and 
sign  of  a  movement  that  has  been  not  only  in  intel- 


2IO  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

ligence,  but  also  in  freedom.  Roman  art  having 
received  Grecian  ideas  and  culture  wrought  this 
new  element  of  expression  into  the  Grecian  orders. 
§  172.  The  Pantheon  was  circular  in 
Pantheon.  ground  plan,  but  was  fronted  by  £ 

proper  Grecian  portico,  an  octostyle  of 
the  Corinthian  order,  with  a  pediment  of  steeper 
pitch  than  that  of  the  Parthenon,  and  having  its 
tympanum  originally  ornamented  by  relief  work  in 
gilt  bronze.  The  interior  was  about  142  feet  in  di- 
ameter. At  the  height  of  75  feet  rose  the  hemispher- 
ical dome  divided  into  five  rows  of  caissons  or  panels, 
rising  one  above  the  other  and  running  horizontally 
round  the  dome,  at  the  top  of  which  was  the  circu- 
lar opening  for  light  of  about  27  feet  in  diameter. 
The  supporting  wall  was  27^  feet  in  width — nec- 
essarily thus  heavy  to  support  so  vast  a  dome.  It 
was  broken  within  not  only  by  the  grand  arched 
entrance  and  the  arcade  directly  opposite  where 
stood  the  colossal  statue  of  Jupiter,  but  also  by  six 
niches  now  used  for  as  many  chapels,  each  one  hav- 
ing in  the  wall  two  pilasters,  one  on  each  side,  and 
two  Corinthian  cabled  columns. 

In  this  structure  thus  we  find  the  circle  intro- 
duced every  where.  The  ground  plan  is  a  circle  ; 
the  walls  are  in  part  supported  by  circular  arches  ; 
and  it  is  surmounted  by  a  circular  dome.  It  well  de- 
serves the  name  of  rotonda,  round,  by  which  it  is  now 
popularly  known.  Yet  the  characteristic  elements 
of  the  most  ornate  of  the  Grecian  orders  were  em- 
ployed in  combination  with  the  circular  element, 
with  the  highest  skill. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  211 

§  173.  The  ground  plan  of  the  Coli- 
Coiiseum.  seum  was  an  ellipse,  a  curve  still  more 

expressive  of  freedom  than  the  circle. 
The  axes  of  the  ellipse  were  in  the  ratio  of  about 
three  to  two — very  nearly  that  of  the  golden  section. 
This  immense  structure,  designed  to  accommodate 
over  100,000  spectators  around  the  vast  area,  rose 
to  a  height  of  1 70  feet  by  four  orders  placed  one 
above  the  other,  first  the  Doric,  then  the  Ionic,  then 
the  Corinthian,  each  of  these  three  having  alternate 
columns  and  arches,  and  above  all,  an  order  of  Cor- 
inthian pilasters.  In  each  of  the  three  lower  orders 
were  eighty  arches,  those  in  the  lowest  covering  the 
entrances..  It  seems  to  be  a  just  criticism  upon 
this  design  that  the  columns  are  made  to  appear  to 
support  the  walls  above,  which  yet  have  already  a 
sufficient  support  in  the  arches,  while  in  fact  their 
real  service  is  as  props  to  resist  the  outward  pres- 
sure of  an  interior  arch.  Their  apparent  use  is 
thus  entirely  superserviceable,  and  their  real  use  is 
not  that  proper  to  a  column,  and  is  moreover  dis- 
coverable only  after  the  edifice  is  examined  within. 

§  174.  There  is  of  course  no  natural 
St.  Peter's.  antagonism  between  the  Grecian  right- 
lined  and  the  Roman  curvilinear  archi- 
tecture. The  principles  of  unity  and  harmony  re- 
quire only  that  one  system  of  support  be  made  to 
predominate,  and  that  the  other,  if  introduced  at  all, 
be  kept  in  subordination.  If  in  the  case  of  the 
Coliseum  the  columns  and  the  arch  systems  seem 
to  be  put  to  exceptionable  uses  and  in  other  cases 
were  introduced  together  without  subordination 


212  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

and  consequently  to  the  violation  of  unity,  and  if, 
moreover,  a  heavy  column  was  sometimes  made  to 
rest  on  an  arch,  thereby  making  the  weaker  sustain 
the  stronger  in  violation  of  the  principle  of  support, 
still  in  a  riper  age  of  the  art,  architectural  genius 
achieved  a  harmonious  combination  of  the  two  sys- 
tems, in  one  of  the  architectural  wonders  of  the 
world.  After  the  bold  yet  skillful  design  of  Brunes- 
chelli,  inspired  by  the  study  of  the  Pantheon  dome, 
had  lifted  a  smaller  dome  over  the  crossing  of  the 
nave  and  transept  of  a  church  in  Florence,  Michael 
Angelo,  catching  the  inspiration  from  Bruneschelli's 
success,  conceived  and  accomplished  the  bolder  de- 
sign of  hanging  "the  Pantheon  itself  in  the  air;" 
and  in  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  combined  the  Greek 
and  the  Roman  styles  in  harmonizing  expression, 
as  one  of  the  proudest  achievements  of  architec- 
tural genius.  This  vast  dome,  which  at  its  base 
has  an  exterior  diameter  of  195^  feet,  and  rises  to 
a  height  of  405  feet  above  the  pavement,  rests  upon 
four  piers  which,  although  strengthened  by  Michael 
Angelo,  were  originally  but  parts  of  the  intersecting 
walls  of  the  nave  and  the  transept,  and  finds  in  these 
piers  thus  strengthened  adequate  supports  against 
its  lateral  thrust  The  Pantheon,  as  has  been 
already  noticed,  sustained  this  lateral  pressure  only 
by  its  massive  walls  of  27^  feet  in  thickness  ;  the 
Coliseum  could  only  protect  the  outward  pressure 
of  an  interior  archway  by  resort  to  a  deceptive  col- 
onnade;  the  genius  of  Michael  Angelo  made  the 
nave  walls  themselves  perform  this  additional  ser- 
vice of  lateral  support,  and  on  a  scale  of  most  mar- 
velous extent  and  grandeur. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  213 

§  175.  The  dome  is  the  crowning  element  in 
circular  architecture.  It  was  employed  to  an  extrav- 
agant excess  in  Constantinople  after  the  removal  of 
the  Empire  to  that  metropolis.  It  has  hence  been 
regarded  as  constituting  the  proper  Byzantine  style, 
and  characterizes  as  well  Greek  churches  as  Turkish 
mosques. 

The  church  of  St.  Sophia  in  Constan- 
SL  Sophia.  tinople,  the  magnificent  work  of  the 

Emperor  Justinian,  is  surmounted  by 
a  circular  dome  of  115  feet  in  diameter,  which 
receives  its  vertical  support  from  four  piers  stand- 
ing at  the  four  angles  made  by  the  intersec- 
tion of  the  nave  with  the  transept — the  general 
ground-plan  being  that  of  a  Greek  cross.  The  lat- 
eral support  is  from  side  domes,  resting  upon  the 
arms  of  the  cross.  This  kind  of  dome  is  called  the 
pendentive  dome,  from  the  portion  of  it  which  is  not 
supported  by  the  vertical  walls. 

§  176.  There  was  another  use  of  this 
Roman  cross-  cjrcuiar  element  of  architectural  sup- 
port and  of  beauty  devised  by  the  Ro- 
mans. It  naturally  grew  out  of  the  familiar  em- 
ployment among  them  of  long  passages  or  galleries 
covered  by  cylindrical  vaults.  If  such  a  passage  be 
crossed  at  right  angles  by  another  like  vaulted  pas- 
sage of  equal  dimensions,  the  intersection  will  form 
at  the  top  two  curves  crossing  diagonally  through 
a  central  vertex.  These  two  curves  will  be  sup- 
ported virtually  on  the  corners  of  the  upright  walls 
supporting  the  vaults,  and  will  be  propped  against 
a  lateral  push  by  these  same  walls.  If  now  these 


214  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

curved  lines  or  ribs  be  covered,  we  shall  have  a 
vault  fully  supported,  resting  over  the  square  space 
formed  by  the  intersection  of  the  passages,  leaving 
the  passages  themselves  entirely  free  and  open. 
This  is  the  Roman  cross-vault — an  element  of  great 
beauty,  as  also  of  availability  as  a  mode  of  support. 


Roman  Crossvault 

§  177.  3.  Gothic  Architecture.  The 
Pointed  arch.  characteristic  feature  of  this  style  of 

architecture  is  the  pointed  arch.  Wher- 
ever or  whenever  this  element  was  first  employed,  or 
whatever  may  have  suggested  its  use,  certain  it  is 
that  the  necessity  of  steep  roofs  in  severer  climates 
than  those  of  Greece  and  Italy,  combined  with  the 
higher  aesthetic  value  of  the  curved  line,  determined 
the  general  prevalence  of  the  pointed  arch  in  all 
the  central  and  northern  parts  of  Europe  after  the 
revival  of  arts  and  letters  at  the  period  of  the  cru- 
sades. "  Nowhere  but  in  the  Gothic  building,"  says 
Prof.  Lubke,  "  do  we  find  the  pointed  arch  made 
the  fundamental  law  of  the  construction,  and  vaulted 
roofs,  arcades,  windows,  and  niches  all  executed 
with  its  assistance." 

The  theory  of  the  pointed  arch  is  perfectly  sim- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  21 5 

pie.  Two  like  segments  of  equal  circles  intersect- 
ing at  the  apex  of  the  arch,  furnished  the  two  con- 
ditions of  steepness  of  roof  for  support,  and  of  curved 
form  for  aesthetic  expression.  Its  origin  has  been 
in  question.  The  probabilities  are  that  it  grew  out 
of  the  mode  of  covering  doorways  or  passages 
through  walls  by  horizontal  layers  of  stones,  each 
higher  overlapping  that  below  it,  as  described  in  §  164. 
Simply  rounding  out  the  projecting  corners  of  these 
layers,  so  as  to  form  the  concave  surface  of  a  seg- 
ment of  a  cylinder,  would  form  the  familiar  pointed 
arch. 

The  circular  curve  seemed  to  satisfy  the  eye  of 
the  designing  architect,  who  for  the  most  part  re- 
j  ected  the  ellipse.  Yet  there  can  be  no  impractica- 
bility to  be  found  in  its  nature  to  forbid  the  use  of 
this  curve  which,  as  has  been  remarked,  is  a  curve 
of  higher  aesthetic  expression  than  the  simple  circle, 
as  this  again  is  of  higher  character  than  the  straight 
line.  The  ellipse  was,  however,  tried  on  the  conti- 
nent, but  rejected.  In  England  the  use  of  it  was 
more  successful  as  in  the  Westminister  Abbey, 
and  in  some  modes  of  compound  vaulting  it  was  a 
necessary  combination  with  the  circle. 

§  178.  The  high  roof  introduced  the 
The  buttress.  necessity  of  additional  props  to  the 

supporting  walls  against  the  outward 
pressure.  The  Egyptians  and  the  Greeks,  as  also 
the  early  Romans,  as  we  have  seen,  relied  for  this 
protection  on  mere  massiveness  of  wall.  The  later 
Romans  used  props,  but  concealed  them.  The  Col- 
iseum, as  already  remarked,  used  for  this  purpose 


2l6  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

columns  that  were  made  to  appear  to  be  designed 
merely  to  support  upright  walls  above.  The  church 
of  St.  Peters  covered  its  props  in  piers  at  the  inter- 
sections of  the  nave  and  transept  walls.  The 
Gothic  architecture  openly  displayed  its  prop  in  the 
buttress,  and  converted  that  element  of  support  into 
an  element  of  beauty.  The  buttress  became  thus 
a  distinguishing  feature  of  Gothic  architecture.  In 
order  to  support  the  high  center  walls  in  churches^ 
constructed  on  the  ground-plan  of  the  Roman  bas- 
ilica with  two  arches  on  each  side  of  the  center 
nave  but  of  less  height  than  the  nave,  flying  but- 
tresses were  resorted  to,  which  were  carried  by 
arches  over  the  aisles  to  rest  on  their  pillars  or 
walls  outside. 

§  179.  Further,  the  circular  dome  of 
Jau1t.groined  tne  Byzantine  or  Romanesque  archi, 

tecture  became  in  the  Gothic  the 
groined  vault.  The  Roman  cross-vault,  formed  by 
the  crossing  at  right  angles  of  two  semi-cylindrical 
vaults,  had  four  groins  meeting  at  the  apex  on  the 
surface  of  the  intersecting  vaults.  These  groins 
were  at  first  plain,  but  in  process  of  time  were 
covered  by  ribs.  But  the  crossing  vaults  may  be 
formed  of  segments  less  than  a  semi-circle,  as  in  the 
Gothic  or  pointed  style.  Still  further,  as  these 
groins  or  ribs  are  the  supporting  parts  of  the  vault, 
so  that  all  the  intervening  parts  of  the  vault  may,  if 
desired,  be  dispensed  with,  if  they  are  of  sufficient 
strength  themselves  not  to  be  crushed  by  the  in- 
cumbent weight,  and  if  also  themselves  adequately 
supported,  they  may  be  covered  by  covers  resting 


SPECIAL    LAWS 


217 


upon  them  ;  and  these  coverings  may  be  laid  across 
in  flat  stretches  from  rib  to  rib,  or  may  be  of  other 
form  convex  or  concave.  The  whole  interior  ap- 
pearance of  the  vault  may  thus  be  diversified  indefi- 


Groined  Vault  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

nitely.  Still  further,  more  than  two  vaults  may  fli- 
tersect  each  other,  or  the  ribs  may  be  of  different. 

circles,  and  so  may  arise  all  the  modi- 
Fan-tracery.  fications  of  what  is  called  fan-tracery 

vaulting.  The  genius  of  architectural 
design  thus  had  opened  to  it  a  field  of  unlimited  in- 
vention. The  art  by  its  development  into  the  use 
of  the  pointed  arch  and  the  groined  vault,  that  is  of 


21 8  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

an  arch  and  a  vault  formed  of  curves  of  whatever 
number  and  curvature,  simple  or  compound,  of  uni- 
form or  contrary  flexure,  while  never  disusing  the 
old  Egyptian  right-lined  or  the  Grecian  columnar 
styles,  reached  its  fullness  of  growth,  so  far  as  the 
aesthetic  treatment  of  suppoit  by  vertical  pressure 
or  horizontal  props  is  concerned.  The  one  princi- 
ple which  governs  throughout  is  obviously  this  ; 
that  while  the  necessary  mechanical  support  be  pro- 
vided, this  support  shall  be  made  apparent  to  the 
eye  of  aesthetic  contemplation.  This  is  the  first 
demand  of  the  true  aesthetic  spirit,  that  the  support 
be  real,  and  that  its  reality  be  discernible,  or  at 
least  credible.  This  strength  of  support  may  be  in 
the  massive  wall,  the  incompressible  arch,  the  solid 
buttress  ;  but  it  must  be  there,  adequate  to  resist 
every  pressure,  and  it  must  be  there  so  as  to  satisfy 
the  contemplating  eye  that  it  is  there,  if  it  do  not 
discern  in  every  particular  how  it  is  provided,  in 
order  that  there  may  be  true  aesthetic  satisfaction. 
True  taste  forbids  the  use  of  materials  in  a  way  that 
contradicts  their  very  nature.  Weight  presses  im- 
mediately downward,  and  also  indirectly  outward. 
An  arch  supports  weight  only  as  its  convexity  turn- 
ed upward  shoulders  what  is  laid  upon  it ;  to  put 
weight  apparently  on  an  arch  whose  convexity  is 
downward,  violates  the  essential  principle  of  the 
arch  as  one  of  support.  A  curve  of  contrary 
flexure  is  indeed,  in  itself,  one  of  richer  beauty  than 
a  curve  of  uniform  flexure  ;  but  to  rest  weight  ap- 
parently on  such  a  curve  is  in  false  taste,  for  weak- 
ness at  a  single  point  in  a  support  is  weakness 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  219 

throughout.  So  the  point  of  greatest  resistance  in 
the  arch  is  at  the  apex ;  to  rest  the  heaviest  weight 
on  any  point  below  is  aesthetically  wrong.  A  stone 
or  timber  supported  at  one  end  by  its  principle  of 
cohesion  will  support  a  certain  weight  at  the  other 
end,  even  although  not  otherwise  supported.  Stones 
or  timbers  projecting  from  vertical  walls,  in  other 
words,  corbels,  of  whatever  kind,  can  on  this  prin- 
ciple of  cohesiveness  be  allowed  to  sustain  a  certain 
weight.  When,  however,  masses  of  heavy  wall,  or 
high  towers,  or  columns,  or  roofs  are  made  appar- 
ently to  rest  on  such  weak  supports,  the  aesthetic 
eye  is  offended,  although  the  mass  may,  in  some  con- 
cealed, deceptive  way,  be  in  part  sustained.  Weight 
presses  heavier  nearer  the  earth,  nearer  its  ultimate 
support ;  to  place  the  weaker  support  beneath  the 
heavier  is  consequently  in  violation  of  nature,  and 
so  of  sound  taste.  What  is  useless  it  is  against 
reason  to  employ  at  all ;  to  introduce  what  is  for  no 
conceivable  use,  is  accordingly  against  correct  taste, 
as  pilasters  hanging  without  a  base  against  a  wall. 
Their  proper  office  and  significance  is  support ;  but 
needing  support  themselves,  in  order  to  support 
other  weight,  without  such  support  provided  for 
them,  their  office  is  hindered  and  their  significance 
is  destroyed. 

All  these  particulars  are  but  applications  of  the 
universal  principle  of  all  beauty,  that  it  is  ever  the 
expression  of  some  idea.  It  must  express,  really  and 
truly,  or  it  is  not  true  beauty.  Art  miserably  de- 
ceives itself  and  fails  when  it  attempts  to  create 
beauty  without  an  idea  to  express.  Its  function  is 


22O  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

to  grasp  the  idea,  to  begin  with  that ;  and  then  ex- 
press that  idea  truly, — that  is,  in  accordance  with  its 
own  nature,  its  essential  properties  and  necessary 
relations. 

§  1 80.    It  is  pertinent  here  to  indicate 

Characteristic  ....  .    .   .  ,  . 

effects  of  the  dif-    the  distinguishing  characteristic  effects 

ferent  styles.  ~ 

of  these  different  styles  of  architecture 
on  the  aesthetic  sense.  That  of  the  Grecian  style 
will  readily  be  recognized  as  elevated  repose.  The 
vertical  lines  here  all  run  into  horizontal  lines,  and 
are  terminated  by  them,  while  the  latter  sweep  round 
and  round  without  end.  The  eye  is  lifted  at  once 
to  the  entablature,  which  is  recognized  to  be  in  per- 
fect support  as  it  rests  on  the  stable  column,  and  is 
then  kept  in  secure  and  quiet  admiration  of  undis- 
tracting,  perfectly  simple,  yet  perfectly  complete 
aesthetic  form.  The  Roman  arch  that  turns  the 
contemplating  eye,  round  and  round  upon  itself, 
presenting  no  point  from  which  it  can  break  away, 
except  simply  to  follow  down  the  columnar  support, 
suggests 'as  its  proper  aesthetic  effect  the  steadfast 
orderliness  and  practicalness  of  ordinary  life.  The 
proper  expression  of  the  pointed  architecture  is  as 
obviously  aspiration.  It  lifts  the  eye  ever  upward  ; 
gives  it  no  resting  place,  not  even  at  its  highest  ele- 
vation, nor  yet  when  itself  can  reach  no  higher,  by 
a  gentle  and  smoothed  bending  suggests  a  down- 
ward return,  but  seems  only,  by  its  sharp  ending, 
to  bid  the  contemplation,  with  the  spring  it  has 
given  it,  soar  ever  higher.  The  aesthetic  expres- 
sion of  the  Grecian  style  is  thus  tranquil  repose;  of 
the  Roman,  unending  orderly  activity  ;  and  of  the 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  221 

Gothic,  upward  aspiration  and  endeavor ;  while  that 
of  the  heavy  gloomy  Egyptian  and  Hindoo,  run- 
ning ever  into  the  expression  of  the  infinite  un- 
known of  extent,  and  duration,  and  power,  is  op- 
pression, fear,  dejection. 

§  1 8 1.  A  boundless  field  for  artistic  in- 
wchitefctuurree  °f  vention  is  now  fully  opened  to  the  ar- 
chitect in  the  aesthetic  treatment  of  the 
several  methods  of  support  by  upright  walls  and  by 
columns,  by  arches,  and  by  buttresses.  One  other 
element  of  support,  already  alluded  to,  remains  as 
yet  historically  not  fully  developed  and  matured. 
It  is  that  of  the  tie  in  the  form  of  the  truss.  This 
element  is  available  only  as  prop  support  for  resist- 
ance to  lateral  push.  But  it  is  easily  conceivable 
that  by  it  architectural  genius  may  yet  design  struc- 
tures that  shall  be  as  original  and  as  admirable  as 
anything  in  the  past  ages  of  architecture.  Its  use 
has  been  hitherto  subservient  and  retired  from  open 
view.  In  bridge  architecture  it  has  been  summon- 
ed to  a  grander  service. 

It  should  be  added  that  the  pendent 
Pendent  support  support,  consisting  simply  of  weights 
hanging  from  the  interior  base  of  a 
dome  to  resist  lateral  thrust,  so  common  in  Turkish 
architecture,  is  an  element  which  may  be  made 
available  to  rich  aesthetic  expression  in  western  art. 
To  what  this  great  art  may  yet  develop  itself  lies 
in  the  secrecy  of  embryonic  genius.  In  combination 
with  the  other  more  maturely  developed  principles 
of  architectural  supports,  in  subserviency,  or  in  co- 
operation, it  summons  to  still  new  endeavors  of 


222  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

creative  invention,and  holds  out  to  it  the  premium  of 
triumphs  worthy  of  lasting  commemoration.  Cer- 
tain it  is  that  not  by  mechanical  copying  of  existing 
forms,  or  by  any  mere  combination  of  them  is  the  art 
to  advance.  Only  as  the  artistic  imagination,  quick- 
ened, trained,  and  nourished  up  by  the  careful  study  of 
past  achievements  and  of  the  processes  of  the  great 
architect  of  nature,  shall  be  prompted  and  enabled 
itself  to  create  by  the  origination  of  new  forms  in  the 
expression  of  new  ideas  in  new  ways,  is  there  rational 
hope  of  progress. 

§  182.  V.  THE  LAW  OF  DECORATIVE 
vSS^A  DESIGN.— All  decoration  we  have  found 

to  be  not  self-subsistent,  but  only  ac- 
cessory or  appended  form.  This  indicates  at  once 
the  relation  of  decorative  design  to  proper  artistic 
design.  It  is  closely  connected  with  it,  so  closely 
that  it  may  be  impossible  to  discover  the  exact  line 
of  junction  and  of  separation.  They  run  into  each 
other,  as  do  mechanical  design  and  artistic  design  ; 
as  in  fact  light  shades  into  darkness,  and  body  into 
limb.  We  can  in  neither  case  so  draw  a  line  of 
separation  as  to  be  able  to  say  on  this  side  is  the 
one  exclusively,  and  on  that  side  is  the  other  exclu- 
sively. 

The  motives  to  decoration  are  either 
its  motives.  negative,  by  contrasts,  by  grading 

transitions  from  part  to  part  or  mem- 
ber to  member,  by  relief  of  too  strong  effect  in 
artistic  design,  to  attemper  the  whole  for  a  more 
pleasing  contemplation  ;  or  positively  expressive  in 
revealing  in  some  way  what  lay  beyond  the  prov- 
ince of  proper  artistic  design. 


SPECIAL   LAWS.  223 

The  means  of  decoration  are  either  (i.) 
Means.  by  use  of  new  and  perhaps  dissimilar 

material ;  (2.)  by  richer  treatment  of 
the  same  material ;  or  (3.)  by  the  introduction  of  en- 
tirely new  form. 

§  183.  (i.)The  Athenian  with  his  wealth 
£S?ityof  ffla"  °f  the  most  perfect  material,  the  purest 

Pentelican  marble,  had  no  motive  to 
mingle  in  a  baser  material  into  his  structures.  A 
severe  simplicity  thus  was  imposed  on  him  in  artis- 
tic consistency,  from  the  single  material  given  him, 
to  be  observed  in  all  his  procedure  of  designing 
and  expressing.  Where  an  inferior  material  is  to 
be  used,  the  opportunity  of  selection  and  of  combi- 
nation is  furnished,  which  skillful  architects  in  other 
countries  have  availed  themselves  of  with  the  hap- 
piest results.  Stone  of  different  qualities  and  hues, 
may  thus  be  wrought  into  the  same  walls,  and  re- 
lieve of  the  heavy  effect  of  a  single  inferior  material. 

But  the  Athenian  artist  did  not  reject 
Paint.  the  use  of  paint,  even  with  his  marble 

of  purest  white.  How  far  Grecian 
temples  of  the  best  days  of  Grecian  art  were  thus 
painted,  is  a  matter  of  dispute.  But  no  candid  an- 
tiquarian now  doubts  that  it  was  used  to  some  ex- 
tent even  in  the  purest  specimens  of  Athenian 
architecture.  Frescoed  ceilings  and  frescoed  up- 
right walls,  the  best  artistic  taste  admits  and  advo- 
cates against  the  denunciations  of  purists  in  art. 
That  fresco  may  be  employed  deceptively  and  so 
improperly,  may  be  conceded  ;  but  it  has  a  legiti- 
mate function  to  perform  in  relieving  from  the  glare 


224  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

or  the  deadness  of  blank  walls  and  ceilings, 
only  for  protection,  but  also  for  allowable  dec- 
oration is  paint  thus  used  in  connection  with  the 
proper  material  of  building.  Bronzing  and  gilding 
are  justified  in  the  same  way  in  decoration 

§  184.  (2.)  The  same  material,  again, 
Richer  treatment,  may,  for  decorative  purposes,  be  more 

richly  treated  ;  and  this  in  two  ways,  by 
multiplying  parts  or  members,  and  by  varying  the 
outlines  of  principal  or  subordinate  members. 

The  introduction  of  moldings  is  a  spe- 
Moldings.  cies  of  decoration  in  the  first  of  these 

ways,  which  was  early  introduced  and 
has  become  universal  in  architectural  art.  A  base, 
a  shaft,  and  a  capital  were  regarded  as  essential 
parts  of  a  Grecian  column.  Moldings  were  deco- 
rative parts,  answering  the  purpose  of  relief  to  the 
monotonous  effect  of  a  perfectly  plain  column,  and 
also  of  grading  the  transitions  from  member  to 
member, — from  the  pedestal  to  the  base,  from  the 
base  to  the  shaft,  from  the  shaft  to  the  capital,  from 
the  capital  to  the  architrave.  These  moldings  have 
become  so  general  in  use,  that  the  eight  familiarly 
recognized  in  the  art  deserve  to  be  enumerated. 
They  are : — 

1.  The  ovoloy  or  quarter  round,  called  also  when 
carved  the  echinus.     It  appears  convex  or  rounded 
outward,  and  is  about  a  quadrant  of  a  circle  or  like 
part  of  an  ellipse.     It  is  commonly  found  under  the 
abacus. 

2.  The  cyma  (wave),  cyma  recta,  having  its  out- 
line concave  above  and  convex  below. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  225 

3.  The  fa/on,  ogee,  or  reversed  cyma,  having  its  out- 
line convex  above  and  concave  below. 

4.  The  torus,  a  large  semicular  convex  molding. 

5.  The  scotia,  or  trochilus,  a  concave  molding. 

6.  The  cavetto,  mouth,  or  hollow,  also  called  a 
casemate  or  casement,  a  concave  quarter-circle. 

7.  The  astragal  or  bead,  a  small  torus,  or  semi- 
circular convex  molding. 

8.  The  fillet  or  listel,  embracing  the  flat  band, 
and  the  circular  annulet,    a  round  molding  used 
chiefly  to  separate  other  moldings. 

Sir  William  Chambers  says  that  of  these  mold- 
ings, the  cyma  and  the  cavetto  were  constantly  used 
as  finishings  and  never  applied  where  strength  is 
required  ;  the  ovolo  and  talon  as  supporters  to  the 
essential  members  of  the  composition,  such  as  the 
modillions,  dentils,  and  corona :  the  torus  and  the 
astragal  chiefly  to  fortify  the  tops  and  bottoms  of 
columns  and  sometimes  of  pedestals  ;  and  the  scotia 
only  to  separate  the  members  of  bases,  while  the 
fillet  is  used  for  this  purpose  not  only  in  bases  but 
in  all  kinds  of  profiles. 

The  pointed  architecture  in  the  same  aesthetic 
spirit  covered  buttresses  with  pinnacles,  and  pinna- 
cles with  finials,  just  as  the  Byzantine  added  dome 
to  dome.  It  also  clustered  columns  and  ribs  and 
vaults. 

The  severe  taste  of  the  Greeks  exacted  in 
their  right-lined  architecture  the  most  undeviating 
straightness,  not  only  in  reality  but  also  in  appear- 
ance. Hence  to  counteract  the  effect  of  different 
light,  as  we  have  seen,  they  gave  their  columns  a 


226  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

slightly  conoidal  outline.  They  also  to  secure  the 
fullest  effect  of  light  and  shade,  nicely  adjusted  the 
projection  of  members  and  of  moldings.  Grecian 
art  thus  by  the  intensest  effort  of  aesthetic  inven- 
tion and  design,  wrought  into  their  beautiful  mate- 
rial the  most  perfect  beauty  of  form,  in  the  utmost 
simplicity  of  material  and  of  plan. 

Again  this  aesthetic  impulse  prompted  a  richer 
treatment  of  the  particular  parts  themselves.  Thus 
the  simpler  Doric  capital  was  enriched  into  the 
Ionic  with  its  graceful  spirals,  and  this  again  into 
the  foliaged  Corinthian  ;  and  yet  again  this  into  the 
Composite. 

To  this  we  may  attribute  the  carving  of  columns 
into  forms  of  life.  The  caryatides,  columns  in  the 
shape  of  men,  a  series  of  decorations  borrowed  by 
the  Greeks  from  the  Assyrians,  were  a  fruit  of  this 
impulse,  which  to  a  severer  taste  and  to  one  not 
familiar  with  this  servile  mode  of  bearing  burdens, 
is  by  no  means  expressive  of  aesthetic  ideas. 

§  185.  (3.)  A  more  advanced  develop- 
New  decorative  m e n t  of  architectural  decoration 
brought  in  expedients  to  keep  the  con- 
templation fed  up  to  completest  fullness.  Lest  ex- 
cessive blank  surface  should  weary,  the  Greeks 
broke  up  the  long  frieze  by  triglyphs  on  the  un- 
der surface  of  the  cornice.  With  the  same  design 
they  placed  mutules — rectangular  blocks,  standing 
out  from  the  plane  surface. 

The  system  of  Gothic  foliation  is  another  ex- 
ample of  this  kind  of  decoration.  Circles,  or  other 
curvilinear  figures  containing  forms  somewhat  re- 


SPECIAL   LAWS. 

sembling  a  leaf,  called  trefoil  if  containing  three 
leaves,  quatrefoil  if  four,  cinquefoil  if  five,  and  so  onf 
were  placed  in  the  eyes  of  vaults  or  of  arches,  in  angu- 
lar spaces  on  the  walls,  every  where  to  keep  the  im- 
agination ever  awake.  So  also  in  blank  spaces  the 
artist,  giving  free  scope  to  a  playful  fancy,  wrought 
in  the  most  grotesque  figures, — heads  of  animals 
with  human  hands  and  bodies  of  monstrous  outline. 
Just  as  the  Greek  had  carved  his  moldings,  so  the 
Gothic  artist  carved  vines,  leaves,  trees,  as  place 
was  given  him,  not  to  represent  actual  forms  in  na- 
ture, but  rather  to  prevent  the  eye  from  being  of- 
fended with  mere  blankness.  In  the  same  spirit 
the  early  English  architect  placed  what  are  called 
crockets,  consisting  of  projecting  bunches  of  leaves 
curled  back  like  a  shepherd's  crook  or  of  leaves  on 
a  long  stalk,  at  the  angles  of  spires,  canopies,  pin- 
nacles, and  on  gables  and  weather-moldings  of 
doors  and  windows. 

A  more  developed  system  of  decora- 
Scuip°ureative  tion  stiH  than  this,  spread  every  where 

on  every  member  that  could  receive  it 
expressive  sculpture.  Sometimes  in  low  relief  as 
on  the  frieze  of  the  cell  of  the  Parthenon  ;  some- 
times in  high  relief  as  in  the  metopes  on  the  outer 
frieze ;  sometimes  in  distinct  statuary  forms,  as  in 
the  pediment.  So  also  in  Roman  architecture, 
statues  of  apostles  and  saints,  placed  in  niches  in 
the  walls,  over  the  entablature,  or  on  the  roof,  sug- 
gest the  character  of  the  religious  temple.  This 
system  of  significant  decoration,  which  of  itself 
represents  some  idea,  as  opposed  to  those  kinds 


228  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

before  mentioned  which  are  not  meaning  or  repre- 
sentative, is  most  fit  and  most  happy  in  aesthetic 
effect.  It  opens  to  the  artist  a  wide  field  of  inven- 
tive design,  in  which  he  is  free  to  use  either  natural, 
conventional,  or  allegorical  signs  and  symbols, — in 
fact  every  variety  of  representation  possible  in  archi- 
tectural material. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

SPECIAL  LAWS LANDSCAPE. 

§  1 86.     The  art  of  Landscape,   more 
its  name  and    commonly  designated  by  the  cumbrous 


Landscape: — 
its  na 

sphere. 


name  of  Landscape-gardening,  is  the 
art  of  shaping  or  forming  lands,  as  the  word,  a 
compound  of  land  and  shape  (Anglo  Saxon  scop  an), 
indicates.  It  comprehends  primarily  the  laying  out 
of  grounds  and  secondarily  the  treatment  of  these 
grounds  by  culture  and  the  investment  of  them 
with  such  forms  as  the  neds  of  utility  or  of  beauty 
may  prescribe. 

§  187.  The  art  has  its  origin  and 
origin  in  want  of  spring  jn  a  human  necessity— that  of 
food.  The  supply  of  this  want  gives  oc- 
casion for  the  aesthetic  nature  to  assert  itself,  which 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  2  29 

thea  by  incorporating  itself  in  the  mechanical  labor 
to  secure  the  supply  and  by  animating  and  guiding 
it  by  its  own  peculiar  spirit,  elevates  the  drudgeries 
of  land-tilling  into  the  aesthetic  art  of  land-farming. 
It  is  the  province  of  this  art  to  spread  aesthetic 
form  over  all  the  operations  which  the  supply  of 
food  from  the  earth  may  occasion. 

§  1 88.  With  this  primary  and  funda- 
wantl assodated  mental  want  of  food  are  associated  other 

wants  to  be  carefully  studied  in  the  art. 
The  wants  of  social  inter-communication  in  roads, 
alleys,  walks  ;  of  shade  and  shelter  from  heat,  and 
cold,  and  storm  ;  of  diversion  and  recreation,  and 
others  incident  to  domestic  and  public  life,  are 
wants  more  or  less  closely  connected  with  the 
need  of  food  ;  and  rank  among  those  which  de- 
termine the  economical  ends  of  the  art. 

Penetrating  and  investing  these  economical  ends 
are  the  aesthetic  aims  which  may  and  should  be 
sought  and  which  come  in  to  direct  and  regulate  it. 
This  general  view  of  the  relation  of  aesthetics  to  the 
art  of  Landscape  will  readily  suggest  to  us  the 
particular  laws  which  are  to  govern  in  it. 

§  189.  I.  THE  LAW  OF  IDEAL  IN 
twofold  Ideal~  LANDSCAPE.— In  all  dependent  art  we 

encounter  the  two  classes  of  ideas  : 
those  of  utility — the  economic  ideas — and  the  proper 
aesthetic  ideas.  Every  expressive  art,  so  far  as 
expressive,  must  regard  both  with  unremitting  care. 

§  190.  The  leading  economic  ideas  in 
i.  Economic.  Landscape  are,  as  already  noticed, 

those  involved  in  the  supply  of  food, 


23O  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

of  intercommunication,  of  shade  and  shelter,  and  of 
recreation.  These  ideas  vary  in  their  modifications 
in  the  more  special  uses  of  grounds. 

We  have  thus,  in  the  first  place,  the 
Domestic  use.  modifications  determined  by  domestic 

uses.  The  ideas  concerned  in  the  pro- 
duction of  food  here  rank  paramount  to  all  others. 
Landscape  predominantly  concerns  itself  here  with 
the  garden,  the  lawn,  the  orchard,  the  forest.  But 
collateral  with  this  leading  idea  are  those  of  retire- 
ment, of  shade,  of  shelter  from  wind  and  storm, 
which  more  naturally  solicit  proper  aesthetic  treat- 
ment. There  are  still,  besides  these,  the  ideas  con- 
nected with  the  demands  for  recreation,  for  walks 
and  drives,  for  games  and  exercises  of  whatever 
kind  related  to  a  rich,  well-regulated,  domestic  life. 
These  economic  ideas  in  Domestic  Landscape  re- 
quire each  its  due  consideration.  They  are  para- 
mount and  must  govern,  or  even  the  proper  aesthetic 
aims  must  be  frustrated. 

We  have,  in  the  next  place,  the  modifi- 
Pubiic  use.  cations  determined  by  public  use.  In 

Public  Landscape,  the  economical  ideas 
are  concerned  chiefly  and  prominently,  not  with  the 
production  of  food,  but  with  walks  and  streets  and 
roads,  with  parks  for  recreation,  with  gardens  for 
social  culture  and  refinement,  with  cemeteries  in 
which  all  the  sacred  offices  which  cluster  about  the 
resting-places  of  the  departed  may  have  opportunity 
of  unmolested  observance,  with  room  and  place  also 
for  all  the  diversity  of  civil  operations. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  23! 

§  191.  The  ideas  over  and  beyond 
*.  ^Esthetic.  those  conversant  with  economical  ends 
which  may  be  expressed  in  landscape, 
are  at  once  suggested  by  them.  Domestic  life  im- 
plies, at  the  outset,  retirement  and  seclusion.  This 
idea  maybe  expressed  in  the  selection  and  disposition 
of  the  trees  and  of  the  larger  shrubbery.  Domestic 
life  requires  internal  freedom,  and  the  associated 
ideas  of  cheerfulness  and  tranquillity.  It  requires 
also,  for  its  perfection,  the  expression  in  all  the  sur- 
roundings of  home  life,  of  the  ideas  of  growth  and 
training,  of  which  this  art  may  furnish  the  fittest 
suggestions  ;  of  the  ideas,  too,  of  order  and  of  neat- 
ness ;  of  care  and  forethought  and  watchful  atten- 
tion ;  of  a  perfection  of  character,  as  fashioned  with 
grace  and  tenderness  and  symmetry  and  harmony  ; 
of  dependence,  also,  on  providential  orderings  and 
support,  and  of  creaturely  humility,  trust,  and  love. 

Public  landscape  has  for  its  governing  aesthetic 
ideas  those  of  regularity  and  civil  order,  that  may 
be  expressed  in  the  direction  and  construction  of 
its  walks  and  roads,  and  in  the  selection  and 
arrangement  of  trees  and  shrubs  and  flowers ; 
those,  too,  expressive  of  the  proper  spirit  and  char- 
acter of  the  nation  or  community — its  greatness,  its 
generosity,  its  fostering  care  over  its  subjects,  its 
historical  achievements  and  experiences. 

^Esthetic  art  prescribes  that  this  rich  field  of 
economic  and  aesthetic  ideas  be  entered  and  care- 
fully explored  by  the  undertaking  artist ;  and  that 
when  well  and  richly  furnished  with  them  by  this 
exploration,  and  only  then,  he  proceed  to  embody 


232  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

them  in  his  work,  in  laying  out  and  also  in  invest- 
ing his  grounds.  As  he  shall  make  these  ideas 
rightly  and  clearly  to  appear  expressed  in  his  work, 
will  his  landscape  be  accepted  as  aesthetically  per- 
fect or  otherwise. 

§  192.  II.  THE  LAW  OF  MATERIAL 
Law  of  material.  IN  LANDSCAPE. — The  regulative  prin- 
ciples  in  Landscape  given  immediately 
by  an  exclusive  consideration  of  the  material  are 
either  those  which  respect  its  selection  or  those 
which  respect  its  use. 

The  material  here  is  both  inorganic 
selection.  and  organic.  Of  the  former  is  the 

earth  or  the  ground,  the  selection  of 
which  may  be  directed  in  reference  to  the  character 
of  the  soil,  and  the  kind  and  extent  of  rock,  and  of 
water,  whether  of  ocean,  lake,  river,  brook,  or  in 
fountains.  Of  the  latter  is  vegetable  growth,  in- 
cluding trees,  shrubs,  flowers,  grasses.  Indirectly, 
moreover,  animal  life  must  be  regarded.  Both 
beast  and  bird,  made  serviceable  to  the  divers  uses 
of  man  for  food  or  raiment  or  labor  or  entertain- 
ment, are  to  be  introduced  and  provided  for.  In 
selection,  there  will  be  occasion  for  separating  in 
that  which  is  already  given,  that  which  is  to  be 
retained  from  that  which  is  to  be  rejected.  Unser- 
viceable or  unseemly  hummocks  or  crags,  unsightly 
rocks  or  trees,  may  need  to  be  removed,  and  water 
diverted  or  drained. 

§  193.  The  use  or  treatment  of  the 
u«e.  material  is  to  be  controlled  by  con- 

siderations given  immediately  by  the 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  233 

nature  of  the  material  itself.  First,  it  should  be 
used  ever  in  accordance  with  its  own  nature.  In- 
organic matter  in  soil,  rock,  water,  as  also  all 
vegetable  growth,  has  its  own  properties,  which 
must  be  recognized  in  all  aesthetic  treatment  of 
them.  True  taste  forbids  that  they  should  ever  be 
belied.  The  liability  to  this  in  landscape  arises 
from  an  irrational  desire  to  surprise  by  unnatural 
contrivances  and  devices.  Rocks  and  water  can  be 
artificially  placed  where  by  natural  laws  they  could 
never  be  found,  and  trees  and  shrubs  can  by  arti- 
ficial appliances  be  made  to  grow  in  uncongenial 
soils  and  in  most  fantastic  shapes,  and  in  this  way 
shocks  and  surprises  may  be  given  ;  but  they  are 
offensive  to  a  pure  taste.  Bold  and  rugged  rock- 
work,  in  imitation  of  the  wildest  mountain  scenery, 
when  placed  in  low  plains  and  luxuriant  gardens, 
whether  for  grottoes  or  for  miniature  mountain 
water-falls  ;  or  shrubbery  forced  by  trimming  and 
training  into  fantastic  and  monstrous  shapes,  trees 
maimed  and  mangled  to  appear  picturesque,  are 
offensive  because  unnatural.  True  effective  art  in 
landscape,  as  everywhere,  discovers  itself  only 
through  nature ;  and  natural  products,  whether 
inorganic  or  organic,  are  legitimately  treated  only 
when  in  accordance  with  their  natural  properties 
and  relations. 

The  proper  treatment  of  organic  material  in  land- 
scape must  regard  every  where  its  peculiar  attri- 
butes of  growth  and  of  change  with  the  seasons. 
The  effect  of  trees  and  of  shrubs,  changes  with 
their  age,  and  with  the  season.  There  is  no  beauty 


234  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

in  the  sight  of  a  field  newly  ploughed,  or  in  stubble. 
Most  attractive  is  such  a  field  when  covered  with 
springing  grass  or  waving  grain.  There  is  little 
beauty  in  leafless  trees  ;  exceeding  beauty  in  the 
same  trees  in  full  foliage  and  flower.  An  evergreen 
that  is  beautiful  in  a  yard  when  but  a  shrub  in  size, 
may  be  a  deformity  when  of  full  growth.  Different 
plants  have  different  times  for  blooming.  The 
landscape  changes  with  the  seasons.  The  artist, 
accordingly,  has  here  to  anticipate  and  to  calculate 
for  these  changes  incident  to  growth  and  season. 

§  194.  Secondly,  material  in  Land- 
Irns^addreLed!  scape  must  be  used  in  reference  to  the 

channels  through  which  it  reaches  the 
imagination.  This  principle  respects  only  the 
aesthetic  treatment  of  material,  and  is  in  subserviency 
to  the  economic  ends  of  the  art.  Landscape  com- 
mands more  avenues  to  the  aesthetic  sensibility 
than  architecture.  It  addresses  through  the  sight 
like  the  sister  art — it  employs  outline,  and  light 
and  shade,  and  color  like  that — and  in  addition  to 
these  uses  of  light,  it  has  much  more  to  do  with 
perspective  than  that ;  while,  besides,  the  use  of 
reflected  light  from  water  surface  or  from  land  or 
gardens,  or  from  groves  is  almost  peculiar  to  it; 
and  moreover  depends  like  that  on  proportion,  sym- 
metry, and  harmony  for  its  aesthetic  effect.  But  it 
addresses  the  imagination  also  through  the  ear. 
The  singing  of  birds  which  it  invites  into  its  re- 
treats ;  the  divers  modulations  of  the  wind  howling 
or  gently  rushing  through  the  diversified  foliage  of 
trees,  and  inspiring  sentiments  of  awe  and  rever- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  235 

ence,  or  of  cheerfulness  and  peace  ;  the  music  too  of 
water  in  trickling  fountains,  gurgling  brooks,  rip- 
pling lakes  or  surging  sea,  are  all  aesthetic  elements 
to  be  turned  to  account  in  landscape.  The  sense 
of  smell,  also,  through  the  divers  perfumes  of  flow- 
ers, and  the  sense  of  taste  in  the  diversified  fruitage 
are  not  to  be  overlooked.  Landscape  enjoys  this 
distinction  above  all  the  sister  arts,  that  she  com- 
mands more  avenues  to  the  imagination  than  any 
of  them.  The  artist  is  required  to  make  the  best 
use  of  this  advantage  in  the  treatment  of  his  ma- 
terial. 

§  195.     III.   THE  LAW  OF  MECHAN- 

Mechanical     de- 
sign respects  eco-      ICAL      DESIGN     IN     LANDSCAPE. Me- 

nomic  ends.  t 

chamcal  Design  here  has  to  inquire 
how  the  economic  ends  proposed  in  the  art  can  best 
be  attained  in  the  treatment  of  the  given  material. 
It  must  begin  with  ascertaining  fully  and  precisely 
what  these  ends  are.  It  must  then  lay  out  the 
grounds  in  reference  to  these  ascertained  ends : 
selecting  and  then  treating  the  material  whether 
soil,  rock,  water,  tree,  or  shrub,  so  as  best  to  accom- 
plish them. 

Mechanical  design  works  out  the  farm  or  kitchen- 
garden,  rather  than  the  park  or  the  flower  garden, 
which  are  the  more  proper  object  in  artistic  design. 
There  will  often  be  conflict  between  these  two  de- 
partments of  the  art.  Where  they  cannot  be  recon- 
ciled, it  must  be  decided  which  shall  in  the  particu- 
lar case  be  preferred,  profit  or  aesthetic  pleasure, 
and  how  much  shall  be  sacrificed  of  the  one  to 
secure  more  of  the  other. 


236  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

But  it  should  never  be  forgotten  that  a  true  aes- 
thetic interest  may  be  imparted  to  a  farm,  or  a  kitchen- 
garden,  or  a  simple  house-yard,  by  the  skillful  adap- 
tation of  the  ground  to  its  desired  uses.  What  is 
needed  is  a  clear  apprehension  of  these  uses,  and 
a  judicious  adaptation  of  means  to  them.  Is  the 
farm  for  tillage  or  for  grazing  ;  is  it  for  fruit  or 
for  forest ;  what  parts  are  to  be  used  for  this 
and  what  for  that  particular  purpose ;  then  what 
partitions,  what  kind  of  fences,  what  roads  or  walks, 
what  out-buildings  ;  what  treatment  of  soil,  what 
drainage,  what  enriching,  what  rotations  in  pro- 
ducts,— these  are  the  leading  questions  incumbent 
on  mechanical  design  to  solve,  the  right  solution  of 
which  cannot  fail  to  return  a  high  aesthetic  satis- 
faction.  The  right  expression  of  a  rational  aim  is 
ever  in  itself  beautiful ;  whatever  is  without  aim  or 
aside  from  proposed  end  is  deformity.  Every  order- 
ing in  mechanical  design,  therefore,  should  have  a 
meaning  and  significance.  That  every  arrange- 
ment and  disposition  of  the  grounds  and  use  of 
material  has  this  significance,  and  is  not  from  hap- 
hazard and  in  blindness,  but  has  rational  aim, 
stamps  the  whole  work  as  a  procedure  in,  taste  and 
satisfies  in  its  degree  the  demands  of  the  aesthetic 
spirit.  Every  change  in  the  original  condition  of 
the  grounds ;  every  line  of  partition  ;  every  in- 
troduction of  new  material  as  well  as  every  use  of 
old,  should  have  a  justifying  reason  for  it,  and  so 
far  as  practicable  should  unostentatiously  display 
it.  Mind  should  every  whers  manifest  its  trium- 
phant control  of  nature,  not  by  abusing  it,  but  by  di- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  237 

recting  its  forces  and  its  properties  to  the  designed 
ends. 

§  196.  IV.  LAW  OF  ARTISTIC  DESIGN 
?^JcdS£?  IN  LANDSCAPE.  — The  three  compre- 
hensive principles  regulating  artistic 
design  in  landscape  are  :  i.  That  it  work  in 
subordination  to  mechanical  design  and  through  it ; 
2.  That  it  work  in  conformity  to  the  laws  of  those 
organs  of  sense  through  which  the  art  addresses 
the  imagination  ;  and  3.  That  it  work  in  accordance 
with  the  principles  of  the  rational  nature. 

§  197.    First,  no  landscape  can  please 

i.    Subordination  .  .  .  _ 

to  mechanical  de-    aesthetically  which  mamiestly  contro- 

sign-  •  -i    •  i 

verts    its    very   design    and    purpose. 

This  principle  has  a  wide  application.  We  have 
the  violation  of  it  exemplified  in  a  very  common 
practice  of  laying  out  approaches  to  the  dwelling 
or  commanding  structure  in  the  grounds.  The 
rule  of  reason  is  that  every  end  be  attained  in  the 
directest  manner ;  that,  consequently,  if  a  road  or 
walk  is  designed  to  conduct  to  a  given  object,  it  be 
as  direct  as  is  admissible  in  the  circumstances. 
In  aesthetic  procedures,  the  principle  is  that  the 
road  or  walk  appear  thus  direct.  If  there  are 
apparent  obstacles  in  the  direct  approach  which 
should  be  shunned  rather  than  crossed,  or  if  there 
are  apparent  objects  to  be  secured  by  a  deviation 
from  a  straight  course,  the  aesthetic  eye  is  not 
offended.  Serpentine  walks  or  drives,  also,  in 
pleasure  grounds  designed  for  leisurely  contempla- 
tion and  for  successive  study  of  views  of  diversfied 
character,  are  justified  by  the  design.  But  justly 
deserving  of  the  criticism  which  Mr.  Repton  ad- 


238  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

ministers  to  it  is  the  approach  to  his  picturesque 
mansion,  designed  by  the  author  of  a  treatise  on 
the  Principles  of  Taste,  which  was  so  winding  and 
so  blind  that  a  direction-post  was  required  two 
hundred  yards  from  the  mansion  to  indicate  the 
way  to  it.  Equally  censurable  is  the  erection  of 
two  square  boxes  for  lodges  at  the  entrance  into  a 
park,  under  a  fallacious  notion  of  symmetry.  The 
lodge  is  for  the  residence  of  the  gatekeeper,  who,  as 
he  has  but  one  life,  does  not  need  two  dwellings. 
In  like  bad  taste  gardens  were  formerly  laid  out  in 
Italy  and  in  France,  in  resemblance  to  the  human 
body — the  great  walk  in  the  middle  representing  the 
trunk,  the  branching  alleys  representing  the  limbs 
of  the  body.  This  is  an  exemplification  of  the  so 
frequent  violations  of  taste  occasioned  by  the  fal- 
lacious notion  that  imitation  of  nature  must  always 
give  beauty. 

n.  Address  to  §  J98-  Secondly,  the  imagination  is 
cweflf' through  to  be  addressed  in  landscape  chiefly 

through  the  sight,  but  to  a  less  extent 
through  the  senses  of  hearing,  smell,  and  taste,  and 
is  to  be  reached  in  conformity  to  the  laws  which 
govern  in  those  senses.  Confining  our  view  to  the 
optical  principles  which  are  to  be  observed  in 
landscape,  we  shall  find  them  to  be  embraced  under 
the  three  which  are  given  by  the  relative  position 
of  the  observer,  the  form  of  the  objects,  and  the 
nature  of  light. 

§  199.   (i.)  The  relative  position  of  the 

Optical  principles         ,     "  ,  .  . 

from  position  of   observer    will    greatly   determine   the 

eye. 

aesthetic   effect     The   view  will  vary 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  239 

with  the  elevation  of  the  eye  of  the  observer, 
whether  he  look  from  the  ground  or  from  the  lower 
or  higher  stories,  or  from  the  top  of  the  mansion ; 
from  a  valley  or  from  a  hill ;  from  one  point  on  the 
surface  or  another.  In  this  connection  is  to  be 
noticed  the  expedient  of  concealing.  By  judicious 
disposition  of  trees  and  shrubbery,  what  is  un- 
sightly may  often  be  hidden  from  the  view  at  any 
given  point.  Bounding  fences  may  be  concealed 
so  as  to  give  the  effect  of  distance  and  extent ;  the 
limits  of  a  sheet  of  water  may  be  covered,  changing 
the  effect  of  a  pool  into  that  of  a  stream,  or  of  a 
lakelet  into  that  of  a  river ;  views  may  be  opened 
or  closed ;  outlines  that  are  too  straight  and  regular 
may  be  broken,  whether  they  be  outlines  of  the 
surface  of  ground  or  of  the  horizon. 

§  200.  (2.)  The  divers  forms  in  which  an 

From  position  of     object    may  be  presente(i  to  tne  eye    in 

a  landscape  will  often  vary  the  effect. 
Sloping  grounds  and  objects  appear  foreshortened. 
Undulating  grounds  appear  more  extended  than 
plane  surfaces.  Strait  roads  or  fences  crossing 
valleys  obliquely  appear  curved.  This  different 
aspect  presented  by  the  same  object  as  to  its  form 
and  size  is  an  element  of  aesthetic  effect  which 
demands  careful  study  of  the  artist  in  landscape. 

§  20 1.  (3.)  The  laws  of  light  itself  as 
From  nature  of  the  mediurn  of  vision  require  careful 

attention  in  landscape.  The  princi- 
ples of  what  is  called  aerial  perspective  have  here 
a  wide  application.  The  effect  of  distance  on  the 
apparent  size  and  relative  form  of  objects,  and  on 


24O  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

their  apparent  relations  to  one  another  in  position 
and  in  magnitude ;  the  varying  effect  of  dawning, 
midday,  and  evening  light,  of  haze  and  cloud,  of 
shade  and  coloring,  all  require  study.  For  illustra- 
tion, views  to  be  taken  from  a  southern  outlook 
need  different  treatment  from  those  from  a  northern  ; 
those  from  an  eastern  outlook,  a  different  treatment 
from  those  from  a  western.  The  effect  of  long 
vistas  through  rows  of  trees  may  be  enhanced  by 
breaks,  and  also  by  a  gradually  deepening  foliage. 
Inasmuch  as  we  estimate  the  size  of  distant  ob- 
jects by  reference  to  some  assumed  standard  of 
known  dimensions,  the  introduction  of  a  familiar 
object  dwarfed  from  its  ordinary  size,  will  enlarge 
the  apparent  size  of  objects  whose  dimensions  are 
not  known.  A  standard  of  greater  than  ordinary 
dimensions  has  the  reverse  effect.  Mr.  Repton 
mentions  a  colossal  statue  of  Penn,  which  was 
placed  on  the  roof  of  a  building,  and  which  conse- 
quently diminished  the  size  of  every  other  object 
around.  On  the  same  principle  he  recommended 
placing  cattle  of  a  small  breed  on  a  contracted  lawn 
to  make  it  appear  larger.  A  dwarfed  tree  made 
prominent  will  cause  trees  in  a  forest  or  a  grove  to 
seem  taller.  Mr.  Repton  relates  that  an  obelisk  at 
Holkhorn  appeared  at  a  distance  to  be  surrounded 
by  shrubbery  ;  but  on  approaching,  these  apparent 
shrubs  were  found  to  be  in  fact  large  trees. 

Objects,  further,  appear  smaller  if  placed  in 
strong  light,  or  when  outlined  against  the  sky  or  a 
sheet  of  water ;  they  appear  larger,  on  the  other 
hand,  when  outlined  upon  a  dark  back-ground. 


SPZCIAL    LAWS.  241 

In  a  northern  latitude,  a  sheet  of  water  viewed 
from  a  southern  outlook  appears  bright  and  cheer- 
ful ;  while  from  a  northern  outlook  it  will  appear 
dark  and  gloomy.  In  the  same  way  the  light  re- 
flected from  a  low  surface  of  water  may  not  reach 
the  eye,  and  thus  a  lake  or  stream  may  appear 
cheerless  that  would  reflect  the  full  radiance  of  a 
cheering  sun  to  an  eye  at  proper  elevation.  A 
dense  mass  of  foliage  reflects  in  the  same  way 
light  and  cheerfulness  towards  the  sun,  but  shade 
and  gloominess  in  the  opposite  direction.. 

Still  further,  Mr.  Repton  remarks  that  he  has 
found  from  careful  observation  that  all  natural  ob- 
jects, such  as  woods,  trees,  lawn,  water,  and  dis- 
tant mountains,  appear  best  with  the  sun  behind 
them  ;  while  all  artificial  objects,  such  as  houses, 
bridges,  roads,  boats,  arable  fields,  and  distant 
towns  or  villages  appear  best  with  the  sun  full  upon 
them, 
m.  conformity  §  2O2-  Thirdly,  the  ideas  in  landscape 

torationalnature.      ^Q  tQ    fe    expressed    in    Conformity    to 

the  rational  principles  of  our  nature. 

The  principle  of  unity  requires  that 
Unity.  the  grounds  and  the  entire  investiture 

of  them  be  designed  in  reference  to 
the  dwelling  or  the  public  edifice  for  which  the 
landscape  is  intended.  Its  magnitude,  its  style  of 
architecture,  its  economic  arrangements,  should 
lend  suggestions  in  the  whole  design,  that  through 
it  all  may  be  viewed  as  one.  This  will  furnish  the 
general  principal  of  unity.  Subordinate  principles 
will  be  found  in  the  more  specific  objects  proposed, 


242  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

as  whether  a  farm  or  a  park,  a  kitchen-garden  or  a 
flower  garden,  water-scenery  or  rock  work,  forest, 
grove,  or  orchard,  intended  to  give  character  to  the 
whole  or  to  any  part. 

The  principle  of  contrast,  by  which 
Contrast.  the  eye  is  made  to  recognize  more 

prominently  the  different,  while  yet  the 
general  unity  upon  which  it  rests  is  not  obscured,  has 
a  large  application  in  landscape.  In  material,  in 
object,  in  size,  in  outline,  in  light  and  shade,  and  in 
color, — every  where,  this  great  element  of  beauty 
may  be  used  with  rich  effect  by  the  skillful  artist. 

The  principle  of  aesthetic  number  pro- 
esthetic  number,  hibits  an  excessive  multiplicity  of  di- 
visions and  of  uses.  It  is  fatal  to 
aesthetic  effect  to  break  up  into  manifold  fields,  and 
put  them  to  divers  purposes  as  for  gardens,  graz- 
ing, orchards,  or  to  multiply  objects,  whether  build- 
ings, clumps  of  trees,  sheets  of  water,  bridges, 
fountains,  drives,  or  walks. 

The  principle  of  proportion  here  as  in 
Proportion.          architecture,  requires  that  each   part 
bear  a  due  relation  in  extent  and  mag- 
nitude to  the  whole. 

The  principles  of  symmetry  and  har- 
h^ny.y  and  mony  have  their  application  every- 
where. They  require  that  the  like 
parts  be  treated  similarly  if  in  the  same  relations. 
The  abuse  of  these  principles  is  in  introducing 
what  is  not  needed  for  the  purpose  of  applying 
them  ;  designing  the  landscape  for  the  principles 
instead  of  simply  obeying  the  principles  when  the 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  243 

landscape  designed  for  its  own  purposes  gives  occa- 
sion for  their  control.  This  common  perversion  of 
a  most  necessary  principle  has  been  well  satirized 
by  the  poet  in  the  familiar  couplet :  . 

"  Grove  nods  at  grove ;  each  alley  has  a  brother ;  {/ 

And  half  the  platform  just  reflects  the  other."  i 

§   203.      EXEMPLIFICATION     OF    THE  A-^ 
rap'r7  °f  land"    PRINCIPLES    OF    DESIGN     IN    LAND-    0^Lt 

SCAPE  IN  THE  LEADING  STYLES  OF 

THE  ART  IN  HISTORY. — Ancient  life  was  too  un- 
settled and  warlike  to  allow  early  development 
in  this  art.  Homer's  imagination  conceived 
nothing  beyond  the  kitchen-garden  of  Alcinous. 
Plutarch  tells  us  the  practice  in  his  times  was 
in  ornamental  gardens  to  set  off  the  beauties 
of  roses  and  violets  by  intermingled  leeks  and 
onions — a  rather  distasteful  application  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  contrast.  Roman  gardens  were  displays 
of  lavish  expenditure,  but  of  the  rudest  taste. 
Only  since  the  sixteenth  century  has  the  art  begun 
a  true  growth.  It  has,  like  architecture,  developed 
successively  elements  of  aesthetic  expression  in  suc- 
cessive styles.  Of  these  may  be  enumerated  the 

Italian  and  French,  or  the  Geometric  ; 
Four  styles.  the  Chinese,  or  Pseudo-natural  ;  the 

Picturesque ;  and  the  Expressive,  or 
True  Artistic  Style. 

§  204.  (i.)  The  Geometric  Style  is 
i.  Geometric.  characterized  by  the  rigid  application 

of  mathematical  lines  and  proportions. 
Public  roads  and  streets  and  walks  must  be  direct ; 
and  to  public  landscape  the  geometric  style  has  a 


244  LAWS    OF    BEAUT.'. 

wide  legitimate  application.  In  private  landscape, 
also,  the  rectilinear  disposition  of  grounds  is  often 
in  true  taste.  This  style  indicates  a  step  of  pro- 
gress into  the  proper  domain  of  art ;  for  the  old 
Roman  practice  of  shearing  the  spray  of  shrubbery 
and  trees  into  fantastic  imitations  of  mechanical  or 
animal  shapes  can  hardly  be  reckoned  as  within  the 
province  of  true  art.  The  Geometric  principle  is 
legitimate,  but  it  has  not  universal  application,  and 
is  relatively  an  inferior  one  in  aesthetic  account. 

§  205.  II.  The  Pseudo-natural  Style 
natural8  e  u  d  ° "  grounded  itself  on  the  assumption  that 
all  art  must  be  imitation  of  nature. 
The  artificial  method  of  the  Geometric  style  is  here 
consequently  avoided  ;  the  compass  and  the  chain 
are  thrown  aside  ;  and  what  is  actually  found  in 
nature  is  copied  so  far  as  practicable  in  landscape. 
No  matter  how  opposite  in  character,  how  unsightly 
in  themselves,  any  objects  actually  met  with  are 
legitimate  objects  for  landscape  investiture.  Moun- 
tain torrents  in  flower  gardens,  dilapidated  build- 
ings in  lawns,  broken-down  walls,  dead  trees,  were 
introduced  at  great  expense,  and  admired  because 
this  is  nature.  In  like  manner,  seeds  were  to  be 
dropped  at  hap-hazard  anywhere,  and  trees  and 
shrubs  were  set  out  in  careful  irregularity,  the 
highest  art  being  supposed  to  consist  in  the  widest 
departures  from  all  artificial  device  or  rule.  The 
fundamental  error  in  the  entire  school  of  artists 
who  make  the  imitation  of  the  real  the  sole  prin- 
ciple of  art  lies  in  this :  that  they  make  the  imita- 
tion to  respect  the  results  or  products  of  the 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  245 

Creative  spirit  in  nature,  intermingled  with  all  the 
accidental  and  exceptional  and  deficient,  instead  of 
the  aims  and  principles  of  the  creative  spirit  itself. 
The  true  function  of  art  is  to  create,  not  to  copy. 
It  should  therefore  imitate,  not  the  works  of 
another's  device  and  skill,  but  the  device  and  skill 
itself;  seize  the  aims  and  ends,  learn  the  means,  and 
energetically  work  out  those  aims  through  those 
means.  Then  its  products  will  be  at  least  imitations 
in  the  more  important  characters  of  life  and  expres- 
sion, if  not  in  perfection  of  skill  and  richness  of 
design.  Monkeys  imitate  ;  men,  as  godlike,  should 
create. 

§  206.    III.  The  Picturesque  style  took 
in.  picturesque,    its  rise  from  the  conception  that  a  land- 
scape should  be  a  picture.     Hence  to 
design  a  perfect  landscape,  a  perfect  picture  should 
first  be  made  or  imagined,  and  the  grounds  should 
be  fashioned  and  invested  from  this  as  a  model. 
Mr.  Price,  in  his  treatise  on  the  picturesque,  is  an 
earnest  advocate  of  this  doctrine.     It  is  true  that 
the   same   general   optical    principles   regulate   in 
painting  as  in  landscape,  and  so  much  justification 
in  truth  belongs  to  the  theory.     But  the  utter  im- 
possibility of  transferring  the  outlines,  the  perspec- 
tive, the  shadings,  the  coloring  proper  for  a  good 
painting  of  a  few  inches  or  feet  in  size  to  acres  of 
extent  in  grounds,  except  only  in  the  most  general 
principles  of  vision,  must  doom  the  theory  as  to 
any  important  practical  use  to  be  made  of  it.     The 
attempt   must   ever   miscarry,    and   occasion  only 
deformity.    The  simple  fact  of  the  perpetual  change 


246  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

going  on  in  real  landscape  from  season  to  season 
and  from  year  to  year,  is  of  itself  sufficient  to  con- 
demn the  theory.  A  spring  view  is  as  unlike  an 
autumn  view,  except  in  mere  outline,  as  a  view 
taken  in  the  nakedness  of  winter  is  unlike  one 
taken  in  the  full  rich  dress  of  summer.  The  theory 
is  grounded  on  only  a  very  partial  truth ;  it  has 
been  valuable  only  as  it  has  led  to  the  investigation 
and  use  of  those  principles  which  are  common  to 
both  arts. 

§  207.  IV.  The  Expressive  or  True 
iv^  The  expres-  Artistic  Style  appears  as  the  last  stage 

in  the  development  of  the  art  of  land- 
scape. Its  principle  is  that  the  legitimate  effect 
of  landscape,  aesthetically  speaking,  is  to  be  sought 
by  the  due  expression  of  the  ideas,  both  economic 
and  aesthetic,  proper  to  the  art.  The  artist 
begins  with  ascertaining  determinately  what  ideas 
he  is  to  express  —  what  ends  he  is  to  effect, 
what  sentiments  reveal,  what  aims  accomplish- 
His  selection  and  use  of  material  are  then 
directed  in  reference  to  the  accomplishment  of 
these  clearly  apprehended  aims.  His  work  thus 
proceeds  rationally,  and  commands  success.  The 
skillful  revelation  of  his  ideas  of  itself  invests  his 
grounds  with  the  robes  of  beauty — with  ever 
diversified,  ever  harmonized,  ever  intelligible,  ever 
pleasing  form. 

§  208.  V.  LAW  OF  DECORATIVE  DE- 
Extent  of  decora-  SIGN  m  LANDSCAPE. — Landscape,  like 

architecture,  invites  decoration.  It 
affords  room  everywhere  for  the  outpouring  spirit 


SPECIAL   LAWS.  247 

of  aesthetic  form  to  utter  itself.  Both  in  design 
and  in  execution,  it  may  go  beyond  any  demand 
for  the  mere  attainment  of  economic  ends  or  for 
aesthetic  expression  of  the  governing  ideas  of  the 
landscape.  Working  in  strict  subordination  to 
these  governing  ideas,  and  in  harmony  with  the  ex- 
pression of  them,  it  may  bring  in  dissimilar  ma- 
terial, fill  in  new  creations  of  the  inventive  spirit, 
or  elaborate  to  a  higher  and  richer  finish  the  gov- 
erning forms. 

Architectural  decorations,  of  manifold 
Architecture.        kinds,  as  conservatories,  arbors,  pavil- 
ions, treillages,  and  the  like  may  find 
place. 

When  in  keeping  with  the  general 
sculpture.  character  of  the  landscape,  sculpture, 

also,  in  statues,  relief-work,  is  not  in- 
admissible ;  yet  one  can  hardly  regard  with  quiet 
satisfaction  finely  chiseled  marbles  exposed  in 
open  grounds  to  the  deforming  and  destroying  in- 
fluences of  untoward  climates.  Vases 
vases.  and  other  provisions  for  supporting 

small  shrubs  and  flowers  rank  among 
the  most  common  decorations  of  yards  and  gardens. 
Fountains,  too,  and  jets,  also  find  place. 
Fountain*  An  almost  limitless  variety  of  decora- 

tion is  thus  placed  at  the  service  of 
the  landscape  artist.  If  governed  by  a  correct 
aesthetic  judgment,  and  especially  curbing  all  ten- 
dencies to  excess,  he  will  be  able  to  enrich  his 
grounds  with  divers  charms  which  a  simpler  treat- 
ment might  dispense  with. 


243  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 


CHAPTER  VIL 

SPECIAL  LAWS SCULPTURE. 

§  209.     With  sculpture  we  enter  the 

Sculpture  a  free      realm  Qf  fr&Q  beauty>  in  which  the  aim 

of  the  production  is  not  to  satisfy 
some  want  the  supply  of  which  gives  occasion  for 
beautifying  art  to  exert  itself, — not  to  create  some 
form  that  shall  minister  to  some  utility,  but  to  cre- 
ate form  for  its  own  sake.  Here  the  end  in  the  art 
is  form.  If  some  utility  in  any  case  may  be  reached 
by  it,  yet  this  result  is  only  through  the  form  which 
ever  governs  in  the  entire  art-process. 

Sculpture  accordingly  belongs  to  the  class  of  the 
so-called  liberal  arts,  fine  arts,  aesthetic  arts,  phonetic 
arts,  in  distinction  from  the  class  called  variously 
dependent  arts,  useful  arts,  mechanical  arts,  tech- 
nic  arts,  in  which  the  utility  governs  and  form  is 
subservient 

§210.  The  art  had  its  origin  in  the 
origin.  spirit  of  worship,  of  pious  gratitude  or 

hope,  or  religious  desire.  A  grateful 
sense  of  favor  received  prompted  the  erection  of 
some  memorial  that  should  be  a  lasting  witness 
and  remembrancer  of  the  kindness  rendered,  and 
also  of  the  gratitude  felt.  It  was  at  first  simply  a 
stone  or  a  pile  of  stones,  upon  which  perhaps  a 
sacrifice  could  be  offered  to  the  interposing  deity. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  249 

The  rude  rough  pillar  of  stone  was  afterwards 
shaped  into  some  form  that  would  at  least  evince  a 
larger  gratitude  than  the  mere  setting  up  of  a  stone 
in  some  conspicuous  place,  if  it  did  not  also  sug- 
gest some  attribute  of  the  favoring  divinity,  or 
otherwise  indicate  for  whom  the  offering  was  in- 
tended. Character  thus  came  in  for  expression 
in  the  progress  of  the  art,  and  so  the  art  was  per- 
fected. The  motive  which  should  lead  to  the  exer- 
cise of  the  art,  came  to  be  separated  from  the  essen- 
tial nature  of  the  art.  However  prompted  or  occa- 
sioned, the  procedure  in  the  art  itself  properly  be- 
gan with  some  idea  to  be  expressed  ;  and  the  art 
concerned  itself  simply  with  embodying  that  idea 
in  the  given  material. 

§  211.  I.  LAW  OF  IDEA  IN  SCULP- 
Reaimofidea.  TURE. — The  range  of  idea  allowed  to 

the  sculptor  for  his  selection  is  wide 
as  the  realm  of  idea  itself.  Theorists,  indeed,  have 
laid  down  boundaries  and  prohibited  excursions 
into  this  or  that  field  of  idea;  but  both  on  a  priori 
and  also  on  historic  grounds — both  from  the  nature 
of  the  art,  and  also  from  the  actual  achievements 
of  the  art, — we  are  constrained  to  reject  all  such 
teachings  as  one-sided  and  partial.  What  idea  ap- 
prehensible by  the  human  spirit  may  not  in  some 
way  be  more  or  less  directly,  more  or  less  perfectly, 
outlined  in  marble  or  in  bronze  ?  What  class  of 
ideas  has  not  actually  been  entered  and  from  it 
some  one  taken  by  the  artist  and  revealed  in  stone 
for  the  mere  sake  of  the  expression — for  the  form's 
sake  alone  ?  Egyptian  sculpture  loved  to  image  in 


250  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

stone  even  the  infinite  itself,  however  rudely,  how- 
ever faintly — the  infinite  in  extent  of  time  and  space, 
the  infinite  in  power,  the  infinite  in  one  or  another 
attribute  of  power.  Hindoo  sculpture  lost  itself 
in  its  elaborations  of  this  idea.  All  the  specific 
shapings  of  creative  wisdom  and  power  in  the  in- 
organic and  the  organic  world  as  also  in  the  realm 
of  rational  spirit,  have  also  been  in  different 
branches  of  the  art,  in  different  schools,  delineated 
in  stone  or  metal,  or  wood,  or  ivory.  Even  the 
monstrous  itself,  ideal  creations  made  up  of  the 
most  unnatural  unions  and  combinations,  have  been 
revealed  in  sculpture.  Centaurs  representing  the 
intelligence  of  man  united  with  the  fleetness  of  the 
animal,  giants  with  human  heads  and  busts  termi- 
nating in  snakes  to  express  the  union  of  reason 
with  malignity  ;  mermaids  and  other  fish  monsters  ; 
unions  of  human  or  of  animal  forms  as  superior 
and  governing  with  the  natures  of  fish  as  subserv- 
ient and  executive,  have  found  place  in  the  art,  and 
in  its  higher  development 

Yet  the  nature  of  the  art  as  determined  by  the 
material  with  which  it  has  to  do  and  the  instru- 
ment— the  chisel  —  with  which  it  chiefly  and 
characteristically  has  to  work,  impose  certain  limi- 
tations, so  far  at  least,  as  to  render  it  necessary  for 
the  artist  to  select  his  ideas  with  considerate  care 
in  order  to  his  highest  skill  and  success. 

§  2 1 2.  Ideals  in  art  are  either  original 
orfsfnaiosr derive"  with  the  artist  and  are  his  own  crea- 
tions, or  are  given  to  him  to  be  copied 
and  rendered  in  his  assigned  material. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  251 

Original  ideals  in  sculpture  may  be  constituted, 
as  we  have  seen,  out  of  any  of  the  ideas  within 
reach  of  the  human  SDirit.  The  Greek  sculptors 
delighted  to  combine  the  characteristic  attributes 
of  one  or  another  of  their  divers  deities.  Their  rich 
mythology  furnished  them  with  a  most  suggestive 
field  of  ideas  for  subjects.  The  attributes  of  spirit, 
exemplified  in  their  highest  and  most  perfect  forms 
in  the  divine  nature,  combined  in  divers  ways  and 
with  divers  modifications  for  forming  special  types 
of  character,  are  of  the  highest  order  of  elements 
for  ideal  subjects  in  art.  One  attribute  made 
governing  and  characteristic,  and  combined  with 
other  attributes  only  as  subordinate  and  as  neces- 
sary for  its  own  perfectness,  becomes  a  meet  subject 
for  the  sculptor  ;  or  a  combination  of  more  or  fewer 
attributes  uniting  so  as  to  form  a  more  or  less 
perfect  ideal  in  conformity  with  the  essential  nature 
of  each,  may  worthily  engage  his  skill.  It  is 
obvious  that  the  diversity  of  character  thus  con- 
ceivable is  limitless.  Power,  intelligence,  feeling, 
in  their  manifold  modifications,  may  be  combined  to 
form  innumerable  diversities  of  ideals.  Farther,  art 
ideals  may  be  founded  on  limitless  products  or 
states  of  these  divers  attributes  of  the  spirit ;  but  out 
of  the  infinity  of  the  products  of  the  divine  creative 
power  in  inorganic  and  in  organic  being,  combina- 
tions are  possible  beyond  all  assignable  limit.  In 
like  manner,  the  products  of  human  activity,  the 
specific  workings  of  human  intelligence,  human 
passion,  human  purpose,  in  all  conditions  and  cir- 
cumstances, furnish  elements  of  ideals. 


LAWS    OF    BKAUTY. 

The  field  of  actual  subjects  offered  to  the  sculptor 
to  be  represented  in  his  material  is  as  wide  as  that 
of  original  creation.  Real  characters  and  real 
scenes,  persons  and  events  of  every  character,  are 
fit  themes  for  sculpture.  Even  from  the  animal  and 
vegetable  world  it  takes  its  subjects  for  representa-i 
tion.  These  subjects  it  may  seek  to  imitate  in  all 
points  directly  imitable  in  sculpture,  in  outline,  and 
in  visible  figure,  giving  the  same  dimensions,  the 
same  proportions,  the  same  contour,  the  same  reliej 
to  the  projecting  parts,  the  same  depth  to  the 
retreating  members,  varying  only  so  much  as  may 
be  necessary  to  counterbalance  the  different  effect 
of  different  material  ;  or  it  may  seek  to  represent 
only  the  leading  characteristics,  giving  them  promi^ 
nence  and  suppressing  the  others — may  seek  to 
idealize  more  or  less  the  character  of  the  given 
subject. 

We  may  thus  recognize  three  distinct 

Three  classes.  ,  -  ,   .  .     .        , 

classes   of   subjects  :    pure   originals, 
imitated  subjects,  and  idealized  subjects. 

§  213.  In  the  first  class  the  ideal  is 
pure  original,  the  mere  product  of  the  active  imagina- 
tion as  the  creative  faculty.  It  acts 
here  in  inventing  ideals,  not  as  a  mere  faculty  of 
combination,  taking  only  what  is  already  in  the 
memory,  analyzing  it,  and  recombining  selected 
parts  into  new  wholes.  This  has  been  a  very 
prevalent  doctrine,  but  it  is  superficial  and  narrow. 
The  inventive  spirit  of  man,  developed  and  trained, 
it  may  be,  through  the  study  of  actual  products  of 
divine  or  human  art,  comes  to  the  knowledge  of 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  253 

power  and  of  la\v — of  power  working  under  the  law 
pertaining  to  it.  It  may,  therefore,  with  no  previous 
study  of  any  particular  product,  acquire  the  ability 
to  forecast  the  form  and  shape  which  powers  work- 
ing under  their  laws,  as  modified  by  other  forces 
and  in  divers  conditions,  may  produce.  He  may 
acquire  the  ability  to  use  existing  powers,  existing 
things,  with  their  respective  attributes,  and  by  sub- 
jecting them  to  wholly  new  conditions,  produce 
himself  entirely  original  forms,  which  are  in  no  true 
sense  results  of  mere  combination.  The  human 
spirit  he  may  imagine  to  be  placed  in  circumstances 
unlike  any  that  have  ever  before  been  united,  and 
so  to  work  out  under  the  laws  of  its  own  nature  a 
character  that  shall  be  anything  but  a  recombina- 
tion of  parts  of  character  already  realized  in  his- 
tory. He  may,  as  we  have  seen,  even  produce  ideal 
monstrosities ;  and  in  fact  no  true  artist  ever 
invents  by  culling  forms  from  his  memory  and  then 
reconstructing  them  into  an  ideal.  No  genuine 
work  of  art  was  ever  such  a  patch-work  of  com- 
bination. 

§  214.  The  sculptor,  in  the  legitimate 
r°  exercise  of  his  art  as  a  free  art,  may 

imitate  actual  subjects.  His  function 
here  is,  first,  to  apprehend  exactly  the  subject  given 
him,  and  then  to  represent  it  so  far  as  may  be  in 
his  material.  Here  his  chief  art  will  lie  in  making 
his  material,  which  is  different  from  that  of  the 
original  subject  given  him,  reveal  as  closely  as  may 
be  the  exact  features  of  that  original.  If  thus  he  is 
to  represent  a  personal  subject,  inasmuch  as  flesh, 


254  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

with  its  blending  hues  and  soft  yielding  surface, 
reveals  differently  from  marble,  with  its  hard, 
lustrous  surface  of  pure  white,  he  will  need  carefully 
to  determine  how  in  the  marble  he  shall  secure  the 
effect  of  the  shading,  the  coloring,  the  soft  but 
slightly  uneven  surface  of  living  flesh. 

§  215.  Midway  between  these  two 
subjects.1  l  z  e  d  classes,  connecting  the  two,  are  ideal- 
ized subjects.  The  artist  here  begins 
with  an  actual  subject,  and  by  suppressing  entirely 
or  by  only  more  or  less  repressing  certain  features, 
by  amplifying  others,  or  even  by  introducing  en- 
tirely new  features,  he  creates  a  new  ideal,  neither 
real,  nor  purely  imaginary,  but  one  grounded  on 
the  real  yet  transformed  and  made  new.  A  ruling 
trait  of  character  in  a  real  person  is  thus  often 
brought  out  to  stand  alone  and  dissociated  from 
other  traits.  The  Grecian  mythology  revealed  a 
Jupiter  of  divers  not  to  say  ill-sorted  traits.  The 
sculptof  separates  those  of  majesty  and  power  and 
incorporates  them  only  into  his  marble,  that  he 
may  represent  simply  the  king  of  the  gods.  By 
thus  presenting  real  but  only  partial  traits  in  a 
given  character,  the  artist  may  elevate  it  above  its 
true  merits  or  depress  it  below  and  caricature  it, 
according  as  his  selection  turns  upon  the  noble 
and  worthy  or  on  the  low  and  contemptible. 

§  216.  With  this  wide  field  of  subjects  open  to 
the  sculptor  which  he  may  freely  enter,  the  nature 
of  his  art  as  determined  particularly  by  the  charac- 
ter of  the  material  to  which  he  is  limited,  offers 
to  him  certain  preferences.  His  highest  ideals  are 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  255 

those  of  character  divine,  angelic,  or  human,  which 
may   be    exhibited  in    the  forms  of  being,   as    in 
statues  of  the  gods  or  of  men,  or  in  the  forms  of 
achievement,  as  in  the  representation  of  historic 
scenes  or  events.     But  in  elaborating  such  spiritual 
activities  in   marble  or    in  metal,  where  the  mus- 
cular tension  and  relaxation  which  the  given  activ- 
ity occasions  in  the  living  body  are  to  be  rendered, 
it  is  obvious  that  intense  passion   and  strenuous 
exertion  may  in  their  natural  expression  occasion 
muscular  contortions  and  tensions  that  in  them- 
selves are  offensive  to  the  eye.     Hence  for  highest 
aesthetic  effect,  fixed  character  or  habit  is  preferable 
to  individual  act ;  as  repose  generally  is  preferable 
for  expression  in  sculpture  to  actual  exertion.     So 
the  result  or  effect  of  exertion,  the  state  or  condi- 
tion which  comes  from  it,  is  preferable  for  a  sub- 
ject in  the  art  to  the  effort  itself.     For  the  same 
reason  the  traits  comprehended  in  the  intelligence 
are  deemed  more  fit  for  sculpture  than  those  lying 
in  the  sensibility  ;  the  calm  of  intellect  than  the 
ebullitions  of  passion. 

§  217.      II.    LAW   OF  MATERIAL    IN 

choice  of  mate-    SCULPTURE.     Here,   as  in  every  art, 

sometimes  the  idea  will  be  given  to 

the  artist  and  the  material  left  to  his  own  choice ; 

or  the  reverse  of  this,  the  material  be  given  and 

the  idea  to  be  embodied  in  it  more  or  less  free  ;  or 

still  further,  a  certain  range  may  be  allowed  in  each 

with   more   or    less    limitation.     The 

Gdding   prind-   principles  of  selection  will  be  found  in 

the  greater  or  less  adaptation  of  the 


LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

material  to  embody  the  idea,  the  genius  and  skill 
of  the  artist,  or  the  ultimate  design  and  disposi- 
tion to  be  made  of  the  product.  The  delicate  lin- 
eaments of  the  human  countenance  find  better  ex- 
pression in  Parian  marble  than  in  sandstone  or  in 
granite ;  while  an  Egyptian  sphinx  may  be  better 
rendered  in  the  latter  material.  One  artist  may  ren- 
der more  skillfully  in  bronze,  another  in  stone,  a 
third  in  ivory.  A  coarser,  harder  material  is  more 
suitable  for  remote  contemplation  and  atmospheric 
exposure,  while  a  gem  for  close  inspection  demands 
a  compact  yet  delicate  texture. 

Under  these  several  guiding  princi- 
Diversity  of  ma-  pleg  the  scuiptor  has  a  widely  diversi- 

fied  variety  of  materials  for  his  selec- 
tion. In  stone  for  carving  he  has  the  hard  and  en- 
during although  coarse  granite,  porphyry,  basalt, 
sandstone,  in  which  Egyptian  sculpture  reveled  ; 
and  the  finer  and  softer  marble  in  which  Grecian 
art  achieved  its  principal  successes  ;  alabaster,  too, 
both  that  harder  variety,  the  calcareous,  obtained 
from  stalactites  or  stalagmites, and  the  softer  variety, 
the  gypseous,  out  of  which  ancient  Egyptian  and 
Jewish  art  wrought  boxes  for  ointments  and  per- 
fumes, and  modern  Italian  art  shapes  vases,  can- 
delabra, statuettes,  and  manifold  other  articles  of 
-until.  In  still  softer  materials  he  has  clay,  stucco, 
plaster,  and  wax.  The  different  woods,  also,  par- 
ticularly the  harder,  as  ebony  and  box,  are  fit  ma- 
terials for  his  art.  The  metals,  gold,  silver,  iron, 
tin,  copper,  and  compounds  of  simjple  metals,  par- 
ticularly bronze — an  alloy  generally  of  copper  and 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  257 

tin,  sometimes  of  these  metals  and  zinc — have 
entered  largely  into  the  service  of  this  art.  Ivory, 
too,  must  be  embraced  in  this  catalogue.  Phidias 
wrought  his  famous  colossal  statue  of  Athene,  rep- 
resenting the  goddess  in  the  cell  of  the  Parthenon 
and  his  statue  of  the  Olympian  Jupiter  at  Elis,  of 
ivory  and  gold  ;  the  uncovered  parts  of  the  person 
being  of  ivory,  the  robes  and  sandals  of  gold. 

§  218.  Coloring  has  also  been  em- 
Coior.  ployed  in  the  best  styles  of  sculpture, 

and  by  artists  of  the  severest  taste. 
Phidias  not  only  used  gold  with  iron,  but  there  is 
reason  to  believe  that  the  sculpture  on  the  pedi- 
ments and  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon  were  painted. 
Purists  in  taste  seem  to  think  that  the  one  charge 
of  deception  in  the  use  of  paint  suffices  to  secure 
its  condemnation  and  utter  rejection.  But  the 
charge  does  not  cover  the  whole  ground.  To  use 
paint  for  the  purpose  of  deceiving  may  be  con- 
demned on  ample  grounds  of  reason  ;  to  use  it  for 
the  purpose  of  perfecting  the  representation,  for 
preventing  a  false  impression,  does  not  appear  to 
come  within  the  sweep  of  the  censure,  so  far  as  it 
has  reason.  In  stone,  which  does  not  from  its  very 
nature  admit  of  being  wrought  so  as  to  represent 
fine  wavy  locks  of  hair,  in  which  consequently  the 
best  that  the  most  ingenious  sculptors  could  do 
was  to  carve  in  wrinkles  or  corrugations,  can  one 
on  the  ground  of  deception  condemn  the  gild- 
ing? Or  where,  on  the  principles  of  light  and 
shade  and  of  perspective,  mere  outline  in  marble 
must  give  false  proportions,  false  relative  dimen- 


258  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

sions,  can  coloring  which  shall  prevent  this  false 
representation  be  reasonably  censured  ?  If  the 
proper  function  of  art  be  to  represent  truly,  how 
can  it  be  maintained  that  it  should  not  use  those 
means  which  are  necessary  to  enable  it  so  to  repre- 
sent ?  The  charge  of  deception  certainly  does  not 
lie  here,  for  deception  looks  to  the  intention.  The 
use  of  paint  to  perfect  the  representation  can  b~ 
condemned  only  on  grounds  upon  which  the  use  01 
dead  matter  to  represent  living  body  should  be  con- 
demned— on  grounds  upon  which  all  representative 
art  should  be  rejected. 

§  219.  In  the  use  of  the  material  the 
material'  use  f  general  laws  are  of  an  imperative 

character,  the  rigid  observance  of  which 
is  indispensable  to  true  aesthetic  representation. 

i.  The  material  must  be  used  in  strict 

i.    In   accordance  •.  . ...       ..  , 

with  its  own  accordance  with  its  own  nature  and 
properties.  The  material  of  sculpture, 
in  its  highest  forms  at  least,  is  solid  body ;  it  is 
subject  to  the  laws  of  gravity  consequently,  and 
must  have  support.  Moreover,  in  order  to  aesthetic 
effect,  this  necessary  support  must  appear ;  at  least 
if  it  cannot  be  discovered  in  the  contemplation  how 
the  support  can  be  furnished  in  the  case,  the  con- 
templation is  disturbed,  and  the  taste  is  offended. 
For  this  reason  bodies  in  motion,  in  flight,  or  in 
leap,  cannot  well  be  represented  in  sculpture.  In 
like  manner,  members  of  the  body — the  arms  and 
limbs — cannot  be  represented  in  such  positions  as 
would  in  the  living  body  be  impossible  as  per- 
manent positions,  or  only  in  momentary  transition. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  2  59 

Stone,  too,  has  little  cohesion  ;  heavy  weight,  there- 
fore, should  not  be  made  to  rest  on  slender  reaches, 
although  in  life  an  extended  arm  may  by  muscular 
and  tendonous  cohesion  be  able  to  sustain  large 
weight  without  difficulty.  The  sculptor  may  to 
some  extent  devise  expedients  by  which  he  may 
meet  both  demands — that  of  the  idea  or  subject, 
and  that  of  the  material.  Thus,  for  example,  the 
drapery  may  be  made  a  support  to  an  extended 
arm.  Marble,  moreover,  demands  a  smooth  polished 
surface.  To  this  demand  the  exact  imitation  of 
slight  unevenness  in  flesh  must  be  sacrificed,  and 
the  softness  of  hair  must  be  symbolized  in  plaits  or 
corrugations. 

The  criticism  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  here  is 
eminently  just:  "The  folly  of  attempting  to  make 
stone  sport  and  flutter  in  the  air,  is  so  apparent 
that  it  carries  with  it  its  own  reprehension ;  and 
yet  to  accomplish  this  seemed  to  be  the  great  am- 
bition of  many  modern  sculptors,  particularly 
Bernini.  His  art  was  so  much  set  on  overcoming 
this  difficulty  that  he  was  forever  attempting  it, 
though  by  that  attempt  he  risked  everything  that 
was  valuable  in  the  art." 

§  220.  2.  The  material  must  be  used 
with"awson4nhte  in  strict  accordance  with  the  medium 
through  which  it  reaches  the  imagina- 
tion. This  medium  is  light,  and  through  light  as 
affected  by  outline,  by  light  and  shade,  and  per- 
spective. As  in  Architecture,  and  still  more  in. 
Landscape,  we  have  seen  that  both  absolute  and 
relative  distance  affect  our  estimate  of  the  dimen- 


26O  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

sions  the  relative  positions,  and  the  forms  of 
objects,  and  as  the  estimate  is  affected  differently 
by  different  surfaces,  it  is  seen  at  once  to  be  neces- 
sary to  use  the  material  in  sculpture  considerately 
in  reference  to  this  principle.  A  smooth  surface 
reflects  light  thus  differently  from  a  rough  surface ; 
a  soft  surface  differently  from  a  hard  surface ;  a 
dull  from  a  polished  surface.  Size,  shape,  relative 
position,  accordingly  appear  different  from  the 
natural  appearance  in  living  flesh  when  the  light 
that  reveals  them  comes  from  a  hard,  smooth- 
polished  marble  surface.  A  metallic  surface  reflects 
light,  too,  differently  from  stone ;  and  white  marble 
differently  from  colored  sandstone  or  granite  or  V 
porphyry. 

§  221.     III.   THE  LAW  OF   FORM  IN 

Law  ot  form  re-  i 

spects  chiefly  ar-    SCULPTURE.     We    have   here   almost     >  7 

tistic  design. 

exclusively  to  consider  the  principles 
of  artistic  design.  As  a  free  art,  sculpture  has  not 
properly  to  take  into  view  any  foreign  end  of  utility 
as  we  found  to  be  the  case  with  Architecture  and 
Landscape.  Sculpture  may  be  enlisted,  indeed, 
in  the  service  of  worship  or  of  grateful  remem- 
brance. It  may  be  called  to  represent  character 
so  that  it  shall  be  recognized  to  be  revered  or  re- 
membered with  gratitude  and  affection.  But  it 
subserves  these  outer,  remoter  ends  through  form, 
and  accomplishes  these  foreign  objects  best  and 
most  perfectly  as  it  accomplishes  its  own  end  as  a 
free  art  and  presents  as  its  proper  achievement  a  pure 
form  With  mechanical  design,  it  hence  has  little 
or  nothing  properly  to  do,  except  to  use  it  where 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  26 1 

needful  for  its  own  uses.  Mechanical  design,  as  in 
architecture  and  in  landscape,  for  its  own  end  in 
some  utility,  sculpture  does  not  employ.  This 
principle  is  fully  compatible  with  its  enlistment  01 
all  needful  mechanical  devices  and  appliances  in 
the  attainment  of  its  proper  ends.  The  sculptor, 
proposing  a  statue  in  marble,  for  exemplification, 
first  prepares  his  model  in  clay.  To  work  this 
incohesive  material,  mechanical  supports  and  scaf- 
folding, as  also  mechanical  tools  and  implements 
may  be  serviceable.  When  his  model  in  clay,  upon 
which  his  chief  artistic  skill  is  expended,  is  brought 
to  completion,  its  transfer  to  marble  may  require 
-:  little  more  than  mechanical  skill  and  effort.  He 
1  may  leave  the  work  in  fact  to  the  mechanic,  except 
in  the  general  oversight  and  superintendence  as 
far  as  to  the  last  touches  of  the  chisel. 

There  is  as  little  room  for  proper  decorative  de- 
sign in  sculpture.  The  large  spaces  in  architec- 
ture and  in  landscape  may  invite  if  not  even  de- 
mand of  art  to  go  beyond  its  own  commanding 
object  and  end  in  order  to  help  and  guide  the  eye 
of  contemplation  as  it  moves  from  one  part  to  an- 
other, and  to  keep  it  awake  by  presenting  perpetual 
objects  of  study.  But  no  such  demand  arises  here 
in  the  limited  productions  of  the  sculptor.  The 
grand  corruption  r.nd  degeneracy  in  the  art,  indeed, 
have  ever  arisen  from  the  tendency  to  dwell  on  de- 
tails, and  to  elaborate  these  so  as  to  draw  away 
attention  from  the  principal  design.  Still  decora- 
tive design  has  a  place  however  limited.  Symbol- 
ical decoration  particularly  is  often  tributary  to  the 


202  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

fullest  aesthetic  effect.  Phidias  in  true  taste  placed 
a  figure  of  Victory  in  the  right  hand  of  his  colossal 
statue  of  Olympian  Jupiter.  The  helmet,  the 
breast  plate,  the  shield,  and  the  sandals  of  his  Athene 
in  the  Parthenon  were  richly  decorated.  His  sculp- 
tures, esteemed  the  matchless  products  of  the  art 
through  all  the  ages,  which  once  adorning  the  Par- 
thenon now  enrich  the  British  museum,  were  in  the 
spirit  of  decorative  art.  Indeed,  every  where  sculp- 
ture enlists  decoration.  The  beautiful  little  cast 
of  Longfellow  by  Rogers  is  worthily,  tastefully 
decorated  with  the  bust  of  Dante. 

§  222.  The  law  of  Artistic  Design  in  Sculpture 
divides  itself  at  once  into  the  law  of  medium  and 
the  law  of  intelligence  in  form  ; — the  law  founded 
in  the  principles  of  light,  and  the  law  founded  in 
the  principles  of  the  rational  intelligence. 

I.  The  artist  in  sculpture  must,  as  has 
^optical  prind-  been  aireacjy  intimated,  regulate  his 

whole  procedure  in  conformity  with 
the  optical  principles  of  perspective  and  light  and 
shade.  The  particulars  to  be  observed  in  this  opti- 
cal law  of  the  art  are  summarily  these  : — (i)  plac- 
ing the  parts  in  light  or  shade  according  to  their 
relative  importance ;  (2)  the  effect  of  relative  dis- 
tance in  determining  through  the  visual  angle  the 
estimate  of  size,  shape,  surface,  and  relative  posi- 
tion ;  and  (3)  the  effect  of  distance  on  the  sharp- 
ness of  outline  and  rounding  of  figure. 

These  particular  laws  will  moreover  have  a  vari- 
ous application  according  to  the  size  of  the  work 
and  the  specific  method  of  representing  in  it. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  263 

There  are  readily  distinguished  three  different 
kinds  of  sculpture  in  reference  to  size.  We  have 
thus  the  colossal,  the  life-size,  and  the  statuette. 
It  is  obvious  that  the  optical  principles  mentioned 
will  vary  with  these  different  kinds. 

§  223.  The  art,  moreover,  employs 
Proper  statuary,  widely  different  processes,  and  thus 
works  out  widely  different  products. 
Its  chief  and  most  characteristic  product  is  the 
statue — either  single  form  or  a  group,  colossal,  life- 
size,  or  statuette — but  detached  from  supporting 
wall,  and  standing  upon  its  own  base.  Proper  stat- 
uary embraces  several  varieties,  determined  by  the 
nature  of  the  material,  and  consequently  by  the 
process  of  production.  Its  truest  form,  perhaps, 
is  the  work  of  the  chisel,  and  is  wrought  in  stone 
from  models  in  clay.  Master  pieces  of  statuary 
are  found  also  in  wood.  Metallic  sculpture  is  cast 
in  molds  from  clay  models.  Beautiful  statuary  as 
well  as  relief  work  has  been  produced  from  the 
most  ancient  times,  in  terra  cotta,  being  first  fash- 
ioned in  plaster-clay  of  suitable  quantities  for  this 
use,  and  then  burnt  to  stone-like  hardness,  or 
simply  dried  and  hardened  in  the  air,  with  colors 
put  on,  dried  or  burned  in,  or  in-gilt. 

§  224.  A  second  kind  of  product  is  re- 
RtKeL  lief  or  raised  work.  This  work  is  at- 

tached to  a  supporting  wall,  and  ac- 
cording to  the  degree  of  projection  from  this  sup- 
porting background  is  distinguished  into  the  three 
varieties,  of  high  relief  (alto  relievo.  haut-reliej)y 
middle  or  half  relief  (mezzo  relievo,  demi-reliefj,  and 


264  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

low  relief  (basso  relievo,  bas-reluf).     In  high  relief 

the  figures  are  barely  attached  to  the 
High  Relief  supporting  wall.  The  head  and  limbs 

may  be  entirely  detached ;  but  still 
the  whole  work  is  referred  to  the  plane  back  ground, 
which  circumstance  determines  the  character  of 
the  work.  Figures  that  can  be  represented  as  in 

the  same  plane,  as  in  processions,  are 
Hair  relief.  peculiarly  fit  subjects  for  relief.  In 

half  relief  work,  the  figures  project  by 
one  half  of  their  depth  from  the  supporting  back- 
ground. In  this  variety,  as  in  high  relief,  the  rules 

of  light  and  shade  have  a  much  larger 
LOW  reiiet  application  than  in  low  relief,  in  which 

the  figures  barely  project  from  the 
supporting  surface. 

§  225.  Oi  an  opposite  character  to 
intaglio.  this  raised  work  and  constituting  a 

third  variety  is  intaglio  or  sunk  work, 
in  which  the  figures  are  cut  or  cast  in  the  material 
and  thus  instead  of  being  raised  above  the  surface 
are  sunk  below  it.  In  deep  intaglio,  the  principles 
of  shading  have  application.  One  variety  of  intag- 
lio, is  that  which  may  be  called  relieved  intaglio,  in 
which  the  figures  are  left  on  the  surface  plane  by 
cutting  out  the  surface  around  them. 

Exemplifications  of  raised  work  in  the  smaner 
products  are  found  in  cameos,  of  sunk  work  in  gems. 
Etymologically  a  cameo  is  a  raised  gem,  the  latter 
word  being  the  genuine  word  for  all  sculptured  jew- 
ejs  whether  in  relief  or  intaglio.  Stones  consisting 
of  two  or  more  layers  were  selected  for  cameos,  the 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  265 

lower  layer  being  the  supporting  wall  of  the  fig- 
ures. Shells,  particularly  of  the  coneta,  having  two 
layers  of  different  hues,  are  wrought  in  the  same 
way.  The  success  of  the  artist  in  this  department 
will  depend  on  his  judgment  in  selecting  material 
having  the  layers  of  suitable  thickness  and  of  suit- 
able colors,  and  on  his  skill  in  adapting  his  subject 
to  the  material  and  in  rendering. 

§  226.    The  several  principles  of  beauty  founded 
in  the  intelligence  have  extensive  and  various  ap- 
plication to  sculpture.     The  principle 
Unity.  of  unity  forbids  attempts  to  bring  into 

the  same  product  of  art  either  attri- 
butes or  members  that  cannot  be  in  their  nature 
conjoined  in  imagination.  In  grouped  statuary  as 
also  in  relief  work  the  subjects  introduced  should 
be  all  brought  under  some  one  principle  of  unity  ; 
or  if  the  governing  principle  be  departed  from,  the 
departure  should  be  only  in  subordination.  The 
subjects  of  a  group  should  be  one  in  time  or  one  in 
place,  or  one  in  pursuit,  or  one  in  experience  ; — one 
in  some  respect  that  shall  not  be  difficult  for  the 
contemplating  mind  to  recognize.  So  likewise 
unity  in  nature  is  necessary  to  the  highest  aesthetic 
effect.  The  attempted  union  of  rational  forms  with 
the  shapes  of  animals,  of  birds,  or  of  fish,  can 
hardly  be  admitted  to  be  of  the  highest  style  of  art, 
even  when  interpreted  symbolically.  So  too  the 
attempted  combination  of  opposite  attributes  in  the 
same  subject,  as  of  the  highest  masculine  vigor 
with  the  highest  feminine  tenderness  can  hardly  be 
counted  a  success,  although  marked  by  highest  skill 
in  rendering. 


266  LAWS    OF   BEAUTY. 

§  227.  Contrast,  the  representation  of 
Contrast.  the  different,  also  has  an  obvious  part 

in  sculpture.  It  should  be  the  aim  of 
the  artist  to  present  any  two  objects  of  the  same 
kind  in  such  way  that  the  difference  between  them 
shall  readily  engage  the  attention. 

§  228.  The  principle  of  aesthetic  num- 
^sthetic  num-  ^  controis  ^\\  true  procedures  in  this 

art  as  in  architecture  and  landscape. 
The  nature  of  the  material  forbids  the  ready  union 
of  many  subjects  in  one  piece.  The  eye  seeks  to 
discover  singleness  in  the  block  of  marble  or  of 
stone  for  full  sized,  free,  standing  statuary ;  and  it 
would  be  difficult  to  find  suitable  material  of  suf- 
ficient size  for  large  groups  of  subjects.  The 
group  of  the  Laocoon,  as  stated,  is  in  six  pieces, 
indeed,  which  shows  the  possibility  of  uniting  in 
one  work  of  art  several  different  pieces  with  good 
effect.  But  there  is  an  obvious  limitation  here.  In 
relief,  however,  especially  in  work  on  an  extended 
pediment  or  frieze,  or  other  large  surface,  compli- 
cated scenes  may  be  represented.  Even  the  move- 
ment of  a  long  procession,  or  complicated  battle 
scenes  find  place  in  relief ;  but  the  number  of  dis- 
tinct objects  to  be  grouped  in  one  view  must  be 
limited,  and  if  large  numbers  are  introduced  re- 
course must  be  had  to  subordination  in  groups  or 
to  distribution  into  departments. 

§  229.     The    law   of  proportion    has 
Proportion.           been  a  prominent  study  with  sculptors. 

The  attempt  has  been  made  to  find 
the  proportions  fixed  in  the  nature  of  things  be- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  267 

tween  the  parts  of  the  human  body,  in  order  to  its 
most  perfect  beauty.  All  such  attempts  overlook 
the  consideration  that  the  highest  criterion  of 
beauty  being  perfect  expression  of  idea  according 
as  the  ideal  in  sculpture  is  energy  and  force,  or  ten- 
derness and  grace,  the  proportions  must  vary. 
Hercules  cannot  be  truly  represented  with  the  same 
proportions  as  Jupiter,  as  muscular  force  implies  a 
broader  frame  than  intellectual  power ;  Apollo,  as 
the  impersonation  of  muscular  grace,  must  in  like 
manner  differ  from  Venus  as  the  type  of  feminine 
beauty. 

§  230.  The  demands  of  symmetry 
H^?mon7  and  and  harmony  are  as  imperative  in 

sculpture  as  in  any  province  of  art- 
Such  of  its  products  as  are  for  close  inspection, 
as  is  all  proper  statuary  except  colossal  v/ork, 
particularly  require  that  any  two  like  members  be 
in  exact  symmetry,  unless  there  be  clear  reason  for 
variation.  The  statue  of  a  smith  might  perhaps 
appropriately  represent  the  right  arm  in  larger  form 
than  the  left ;  or  that  of  a  Benjamite  have  the  left 
larger  than  the  right.  So  to  counteract  the  optical 
effect  of  perspective,  in  order  to  apparent  sym- 
metry the  real  dimensions  in  the  two  members 
may  vary.  Winckelmann  has  remarked  that  the 
retired  leg  in  the  Apollo  Belvedere  and  also  in  the 
Laocoon,  is  longer  and  proportionately  larger  than 
the  other. 

§   231.     EXEMPLIFICATION     OF    THE 

History.  PRINCIPLES  OF  FORM  IN  SCULPTURE  IN 

THE     HISTORICAL     PROGRESS      OF     THE 


268  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

ART. — Sculpture  dates  back  to  the  earliest  periods. 
Polytheism  and  idolatry  at  once  prompted  and  re- 
quired in  their  service  the  exercise  of  the  art.  Old 
Egyptian  sculpture  wrought  out  in  a 
Egyptian  scuip-  ru(je>  clumsy  way,  but  on  a.  scale  truly 

prodigious,  representations  of  their 
religious  ideas  in  caverns  and  also  in  vast  detached 
blocks  of  stone.  It  wrought  also  in  bronze  free 
standing  statues  as  well  as  relief  work.  Miles  of 
walls  around  old  Thebes,  famous  for  its  hun- 
dred gates,  were  covered  with  bas-relief.  It 
used  moreover  wood  and  clay  as  material.  It  cut 
its  hieroglyphics  in  intaglio.  It  delighted  in  the 
mysterious,  the  grand,  the  monstrous.  The  sphinx 
is  a  characteristic  product  of  Egyptian  sculpture, 
innumerable  relics  of  which  are  still  found,  and  of 
all  magnitudes  to  even  oyer  a  hundred  feet  in 
length.  It  is  a  monstrous  union  of  a  human  head 
and  breast,  generally  feminine,  sometimes  mascu- 
line, sometimes  both,  with  a  lion's  body,  and  some- 
times also  with  wings.  It  is  diversely  conjectured 
to  have  been  an  astronomical  representation  of  the 
signs  of  Virgo  and  Leo,  and  a  symbolical  represen- 
tation of  the  union  of  the  spiritual  and  the  animal. 
It  startles,  perhaps  attracts,  at  first,  by  its  strange- 
ness ;  the  continued  contemplation  turns  away  in 
dissatisfaction,  not  to  say  disgust. 

§  232.  Grecian  genius  may  have  been 
Grechn.  kindled  from  an  Egyptian  altar  ;  but 

it  soon  reached  a  noble  independence 
and  grandeur,  and  in  no  department  of  art  did  it 
attain  a  higher  perfection  than  in  sculpture.  In- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  269 

deed,  it  seemed  here  to  have  reached  the  very  ulti- 
ma thule  of  human  attainment.     Four 
Four  periods.        periods,  marking  as  many  styles,  have 
been  recognized  without,  however,  very 
precise  philosophical  demarkations.     The   first   is 
named  the  period  of  Daedalus,  himself  a  mythical 
character.     It  is  the  first  stage  of  a  rising  art. 

The  second  period  begins  with  Phidias — an 
Athenian  who  died  444  B.  C.  His  great  works 
were  the  chryselephantine  (gold  and  ivory)  colossal 
statues  of  the  Athene  in  the  Parthenon  and  the 
Olympian  Jupiter  in  Ehs,  a  Pallas  in  brass  at 
Athens,  a  Venus,  Nemesis,  and  an  Amazon  de- 
signed to  combine  manly  strength  with  womanly 
grace.  Besides  these  free  standing  statues,  to  him 
belongs  the  glory  of  the  marvelous  work  in  relief 
on  the  Parthenon,  so  often  alluded  to,  now  known 
as  the  Elgin  marbles  in  the  British  museum.  Of 
these  masterpieces  of  art,  the  British  artist,  Hay- 
don,  remarks  :  "  Every  truth  of  shape,  the  result  of 
the  inherent  organization  of  man  as  an  intellectual 
being  ;  every  variation  of  that  shape,  produced  by 
the  slightest  variation  of  motion,  in  consequence 
of  the  slightest  variation  of  intention,  acting  on  it ; 
every  result  of  repose  on  flesh  as  a  soft  substance, 
and  on  bone  as  a  hard,  both  being  influenced  by 
the  common  principles  of  life  and  gravitation  ; 
every  harmony  of  line  in  composition,  from  geo- 
metrical principle,  all  proving  the  science  of  the 
artist ;  every  beauty  of  conception  proving  his 
genius  ;  and  every  grace  of  execution  proving  that 
practice  had  given  his  hand  power,  can  be  shown 
to  exist  in  the  Elgin  marbles." 


2/O  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

Polycletus,  who  carried  the  art  of  high  relief  to 
perfection  and  excelled  in  balancing  figures  on  one 
leg  and  in  the  symmetry  of  his  parts  ;  Myron,  who 
executed  those  colossal  statues  upon  one  pedestal, 
and  wrought  out  with  great  skill  athletic  figures ; 
and  Pythagoras,  who  is  supposed  to  have  executed 
the  original  of  the  famous  Apollo  Belvedere,  are 
placed  in  this  second  period.  It  is  the  period  in 
which  sculpture  attained  full  manhood. 

The  third  period  is  the  period  of  finish,  of  grace 
and  delicacy  in  expression.  To  this  period  belong 
Praxiteles,  a  native  of  Paros,  about  350  B.  C.,  who 
executed,  among  other  subjects,  all  of  a  more  deli- 
cate cast,  the  famous  Venus  of  Cos,  and  also  the 
Venus  of  Cnidos,  and  the  Niobe  ;  and  Scopas,  also 
a  native  of  Paros,  who  erected  the  famous  mauso- 
leum, or  sepulchral  monument  of  king  Mausolus, 
and  executed  many  noted  works  both  in  marble  and 
in  bronze.  This  stage  of  the  art,  in  place  of  such 
subjects  as  Jupiter,  Juno,  and  Minerva,  in  which  the 
preceding  period  delighted,  selected  in  preference 
Venus,  and  Bacchus,  and  Amor. 

The  fourth  period  of  Grecian  sculpture  is  the 
period  of  decline.  It  is  characterized  by  excessive 
elaboration  of  details.  In  this  period  are  placed 
Lysippus,  a  native  of  Sicyon,  about  324  B.  C.,  a 
painter  as  .well  as  sculptor,  said  to  have  executed 
610  statues,  some  colossal,  some  equestrian  ;  Chares, 
a  pupil  of  Lysippus,  the  artificer  of  the  Colossus  at 
Rhodes ;  and  Agesander  of  Rhodes,  who  with  his 
sons  Athenodorus  and  Polydorus,  produced  the 
famous  group  of  the  Laocoon. 


SPECIAL   LAWS.  271 

§  233.  Modern  sculpture  took  its  rise 
Modem.  in  northern  Italy.  Its  progress  was 

slow  from  the  time  of  Boschetto  in  the 
eleventh  century,  the  architect  of  the  cathedral  in 
Pisa,  to  that  of  Michael  Angelo  in  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth.  Nicolo  and  Giovanni  da  Pisa  in  the 
thirteenth,  Donatello  of  Florence  in  the  fifteenth 
and  his  contemporary  Ghiberti,  who  executed  the 
famous  bronze  gates  of  St.  John's  Baptistery  in 
Florence,  "worthy,"  in  the  judgment  of  Michael 
Angelo,  "  to  be  the  gates  of  paradise,"  are  sculptors 
who  have  made  themselves  illustrious  in  the  art. 
Others  of  less  distinction  appeared  from  time  to 
time  in  northern  Italy.  And  in  the  most  recent 
times  the  art  has  greatly  flourished,  rivaling  in  bold- 
ness and  originality  of  design  and  in  perfectness  of 
execution  the  old  Grecian  art.  Canova,  born  in  the 
Venetian  territory  in  1/57,  produced  many  works 
worthy  of  the  classic  age  ;  and  Thorwaldsen,  who 
was  born  in  Copenhagen  in  1771,  and  died  there  in 
1844,  surpassed  his  great  contemporary,  if  not  in 
grace  and  finish,  in  majesty  of  conception.  These 
last  are  the  two  great  names  in  modern  sculpture. 
But  in  France,  in  Germany,  in  Great  Britain,  and 
in  America  have  arisen  many  artists  of  great  power 
and  skill,  and  the  present  age  is  one  of  richest 
promise  in  every  department  of  the  art 


272  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

SPECIAL    LAWS PAINTING. 

§  234.  The  free  art  of  Painting  owes, 
Origin.  if  not  its  origin,  at  least  much  of  its 

early  vigor  and  growth  to  a  want. 
The  desire  to  transmit  intelligence  of  men  and 
events  from  one  to  another  and  from  age  to  age 
prompted  the  delineation  of  those  objects  in  bark, 
or  stone,  or  metal,  or  other  available  material. 
Picture-writing  thus  naturally  introduced  hiero- 
glyphical  and  proper  alphabetical  writing.  "  The 
earliest  people,"  says  Goguet  in  his  Otigine  des 
Lois,  "wrote  by  objects."  Painting,  like  every 
other  true  art,  thus  begins  with  something  to  be 
expressed,  begins  with  the  idea. 

§  235.  I.  LAW  OF  IDEA  IN  PAINTING. 
Range  of  Subjects.  In  wealth  and  diversity  of  idea,  Paint- 
ing even  surpasses  the  sister  art  of 
sculpture.  The  entire  realm  of  idea  is  open  to  it, 
even  purely  spiritual  subjects  and  relations  allow- 
ing representation  through  it  indirectly  and  sym- 
bolically. Landscape  it  represents  as  freely  as 
persons  or  animals,  which  sculpture  can  hardly 
handle  with  effect  and  only  in  low  relief  in  which 
department  it  borders  closely  on  painting. 

Its  subjects,  like  those  of  sculpture,  distribute 
themselves,   in   respect   to   invention,    into    three 


SPECIAL    LAWS.    '  273 

classes  :  real  subjects,  idealized  subjects,  and 
original  subjects. 

§  236.  In  respect  to  essential  character 
Departments.  of  subject  they  distribute  tnemselves 

into  four  classes,  constituting  so  many 
departments  of  the  art,  as  in  portrait,  historical, 
landscape,  and  genre  painting. 

Portrait  painting  comprehends  both 
Portrait.  human  and  super-human  subjects.  In 

rare  instances  even  the  divine  has 
been  attempted.  But,  inasmuch  as  the  human  is 
the  highest  and  most  perfect  embodiment  of  spirit 
known  to  men,  the  divine  can  be  represented  only 
symbolically  through  the  human.  So  the  angelic 
appears,  except  by  symbol  as  with  wings  and  the 
like,  only  through  the  human  countenance.  The 
representation  of  character,  whether  copy  of  the 
actual,  or  idealized  from  the  actual,  or  wholly  of 
original  invention,  has  been  the  highest  aim  and 
achievement  of  the  art. 

Historical  painting,  or  the  representa- 
Histoncai.  tion  of  actions  or  events,  constitutes  a 

leading  department  of  the  art.  In  it 
are  found  many  of  its  master  pieces. 

Landscape  painting,  or  the  represen- 
Landscape.  tation  of  earth  and  sky,  of  land  and 

water,  of  mountain  and  valley,  field 
and  forest,  ocean  and  river,  more  recent  than  His- 
torical and  Portrait  painting,  originating,  indeed,  in 
the  elaboration  of  back  grounds  in  historical  pieces, 
has  in  the  last  two  centuries  won  a  large  and 
worthy  place  in  the  art. 


2/4  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

Genre  Painting,  although  likewise  of 
G«re.  modern  origin,  has  attained  a  wide 

celebrity.  Its  characteristic  subjects 
are  the  scenes  of  actual  and  more  especially  of 
familiar  and  domestic  life.  Its  ideals  are  not 
necessarily  persons,  although  the  highest  art  seems 
to  require  ever  the  presence  of  some  human 
interest,  and  therefore  persons  are  not  excluded; 
but  human  character  or  persons  are  not  the  only 
subjects  of  this  species  of  painting.  Neither  are  its 
ideals  properly  transactions  or  historic  achieve- 
ments, although  the  familiar  events  of  domestic 
life  are  common  themes  with  the  cultivators  of  this 
department  of  painting.  It  is  a  department  which 
connects  with  historical  and  landscape  painting, 
and  often  seems  to  trench  upon  their  proper 
domains.  But  it  represents  characteristically  the 
real  and  familiar  scenes  of  life  into  which  the 
human,  the  animal,  the  utensils,  all  the  surround- 
ings of  common  life  enter. 

In  this  department  properly  belongs  a 
stiiiiife.  field  of  art  which  has  recently  been 

extensively  and  worthily  cultivated, 
denominated  still  life.  Its  subjects  are  things 
without  life,  as  lifeless  animals,  birds,  fish,  instru- 
ments, utensils.  Flowers  and  fruits  belong  rather 
under  Landscape  painting;  they  belong  to  the 
outdoor  world ;  while  the  subjects  of  still  life  are 
rather  from  indoor  life.  Persons  are  excluded ;  yet 
the  objects  which  make  up  a  picture  of  indoor 
reality  are  just  those  which  cluster  around  the 
experiences  that  enter  into  the  deepest  feelings  of 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  2/5 

the  heart ;  they  suggest  persons,  and  interest  only 
as  they  concern  persons. 

§  237.  II.  LAW  OF  MATERIAL  IN  PAINT- 
Light.  ING. — It  is  the  peculiarity  of  Painting 

that  it  represents  on  a  surface  by 
means  of  light.  All  its  objects  are  thus  in  fact 
placed  on  the  same  ground  and  in  the  same  plane  ; 
while  by  means  of  the  diversified  light  in  which 
they  are  represented,  they  are  made  to  appear  pro- 
jected forward  or  backward  from  that  common 
plane,  and  thus  to  have  depth  as  well  as  surface  and 
so  appear  as  solids.  The  one  means  by  which  this 
effect  is  produced  is  light. 

§  238.  Three  gradations  in  the  use  of 
Ouati1ne.°ns:~  light  are  to  be  recognized.  The  first 

is  simple  outline.  Forms  of  objects, 
their  dimensions,  both  actual  and  relative,  both  to 
other  objects  and  to  the  eye  of  the  observer  and 
their  distances  relative  to  other  objects  and  to 
the  observer,  are  effectively  represented  in  ink  or  in 
pencil. 

The  second  gradation  is  that  denomi- 
shade.  nated  technically  chiaroscuro,  or  light 

and  shade.  To  outline  is  added  here 
shading,  which  is  effected  in  three  ways : — by 
lines  parallel  to  the  governing  outline ;  by  dots, 
called  stippling;  and  by  cross-lining  called  liatching. 
These  two  gradations  are  effected  in  pure  or  unde- 
composed  light — by  the  use  of  white  or  black, 
which  is  accepted  as  the  absence  of  light.  The 
effect  of  shading  is  given  also  by  intensifying  the 
color. 


2/6  LAWS   OF    BEAUTY. 

The  third  gradation  is  in  the  use  of 
Color.  decomposed  light  or  proper  color.  If 

a  beam  of  light  from  the  sun  be  trans- 
mitted through  a  triangular  prism  of  glass,  it  will 
be  separated  into  divers  rays,  having  respectively 
colors  which  cannot  be  further  decomposed,  and 
are  hence  called  primary  colors.  Of  these  primary 
colors  Newton  enumerates  seven,  violet,  indigo, 
blue,  green,  yellow,  orange,  and  red ;  Brewster, 
three,  blue,  yellow,  red  ;  Herschel  says  all  colors 
can  be  compounded  of  three  with  the  addition  of 
white. 

§  239.  The  use  of  light  in  these  sev- 
Treatmem.  eral  gradations  is  diversified  both  in 

respect  to  the  instrument  or  the  means 
by  which  it  is  used,  and  also  the  surface  to  which 
it  is  applied.  The  pencil  in  drawing,  the  brush  in 
coloring,  the  burin  in  engraving,  are  characteristic 
instruments  in  these  several  departments  of  the  art. 

In  respect  to  the  means  by  which  the 
Means.  color  is  applied  there  are  distinguished 

also,  divers  departments  ;  as  Oil  Paint- 
ing, when  the  color  is  applied  in  oil ;  Water  Color, 
when  prepared  in  water ;  Elydoric  when  prepared 
in  water  and  oil ;  Distemper  Painting,  when  pre- 
pared with  size  or  other  glutinous  substance.  Still 
other  substances  have  been  used  from  time  to  time 
as  vehicles  of  color  for  some  purpose  or  another, 
and  the  aesthetic  effect  of  the  work  has  been  accord- 
ingly more  or  less  modified.  Still  further  distinc- 
tions arise  from  the  varied  use  of  heat  in  the  ap- 
plication of  colors.  The  ancients  used  colore 


SPECIAL   LAWS.  277 

mixed  with  wax  which  were  applied  with  a  hot 
graver.  This  variety  of  painting  was  named  from 
the  Greek  encaustic,  burnt  in.  In  Enamel  painting 
the  different  colors  are  obtained  from  different  me- 
tallic oxides  which  are  also  burnt  in  after  having 
been  applied.  Mosaic  Paintings  are  formed  of 
small  pieces  of  artificial  stone  or  glass  already 
separately  colored.  A  frame  is  first  prepared  and 
the  surface  being  covered  with  mastic,  the  colored 
design  or  cartoon  is  imitated  by  placing  in  it  these 
type-like  bits  of  colored  stone  or  glass.  When  the 
mastic  or  cement  is  dry,  the  surface  composed  of 
these  many  pieces  is  polished  as  desired. 

§  240.  The  diversified  nature  of  the 
Surfece.  substance  to  the  surface  of  which 

colors  are  applied,  also  diversifies  the 
art.  Bark,  wood,  paper,  canvas,  metal,  ivory,  in 
truth,  any  material  yielding  a  smooth,  permanent 
surface,  the  art  has  made  available  to  its  different 
uses  and  purposes.  One  prominent  department, 
perhaps  the  oldest  of  the  art,  Fresco  painting,  is 
denominated  from  the  character  of  the  surface — 
fresh  plaster — on  which  the  colors  are  applied.  As 
the  colors  are  intended  to  sink  into  the  plaster 
while  still  moist,  and  to  dry  with  it,  great  celerity 
is  requisite  in  the  artist,  as  well  as  great  exact- 
ness and  precision  in  every  movement,  for  the 
nature  of  the  work  allows  no  retouching  or  correct- 
ing. The  designs  for  this  reason  are  often  first 
wrought  out  on  pasteboard,  cartone,  and  are  trans- 
ferred to  the  wall  through  copies  taken  on  tracing 
paper. 


LAWS   OF    BEAUTY. 

In  Engraving,  the  design  is  first  executed  in  some 
hard  substance,  as  wood,  or  stone,  or  metal,  to  be 
afterwards  printed  on  paper  or  canvas  in  outline, 
chiaroscuro,  or  colors.  There  are  various  depart- 
ments of  this  great  art  named  from  the  material  or 
the  mode  of  working.  Thus  we  have  Xylography 
or  wood  engraving,  copper  and  steel  engraving,  and 
the  like.  In  etching,  the  metal  is  covered  with  a 
preparation  of  wax ;  the  design  is  worked  in  that 
with  a  delicate  pencil,  cutting  lines  through  the 
wax  into  the  metal ;  and  then  these  lines  are  bitten 
into  the  plate  by  an  acid.  Aquatinto,  water-tint, 
and  mezzo  tinto,  half-tint,  are  varieties  of  the  art. 

§  241.  In  the  use  of  the  material,  the 
Twofold  law.  artist  in  painting  is  subject  to  the  two 

comprehensive  laws  which  were  recog- 
nized in  the  art  of  sculpture.  The  material  must 
,.  conformity  to  be  used  in  conformity  with  its  own 
?  T°ownnaturer ofr  nature  and  also  in  conformity  with 

the  nature  of  the  medium,  light, 
through  which  the  art  addresses  the  imagination. 

Effects  which  are  practicable  through  the  brush 
it  may  be  unwise  to  attempt  through  the  burin  or 
the  pencil.  Each  instrument  gives  its  peculiar 
characteristic  to  the  work.  So  the  surface,  accord- 
ing as  it  is  wood,  or  ivory,  or  canvas,  or  metal, 
demands  a  different  treatment  and  for  peculiar  uses. 
The  same  is  true  of  the  divers  processes  employed 
in  the  art.  Light  and  color  also  have  certain  laws 
which  must  be  recognized.  Light,  thus,  moves  in 
straight  lines.  Farther,  light,  impinging  on  certain 
objects,  is  more  or  less  reflected  and  more  or  less 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  279 

absorbed.  It  is  all  reflected  from  no  object ;  such 
light  from  the  sun  would  be  pure  white  light.  But 
no  object  appears  as  pure  white ;  the  whitest  snow 
absorbs  a  part  of  the  sun's  rays  that  fall  upon  it. 
Whatever  light  is  reflected  is  subject  to  the  law 
that  the  angle  of  reflection  is  equal  to  the  angle  of 
incidence.  So  no  object  absorbs  all  the  light  that 
impinges  upon  it ;  were  this  the  fact  in  any  case, 
the  object  would  be  of  course  invisible.  Farther, 
light  impinging  on  some  objects  is  in  part  received 
and  transmitted  through  them  ;  and  in  passing  from 
one  medium  to  another  it  is  subject  to  the  great 
law  of  refraction,  that  the  different  rays  are  bent 
out  of  their  course,  and  this  in  different  degrees. 
The  order  of  refrangibility,  beginning  with  the  least 
refrangible,  is,  red,  orange,  yellow,  green,  blue, 
indigo,  violet.  In  landscape  painting,  in  which 
distant  objects  are  represented  as  sky  and  cloud,  or 
distant  mountain,  water,  or  tree,  this  law  of  light 
becomes  of  vital  importance,  as  one  principle  of 
aerial  perspective. 

§  242.  III.  LAW  OF  FORM  IN  PAINTING. — As 
its  sister  art,  sculpture,  the  free  art  of  painting  has 
no  end  of  utility  to  subserve,  except  what  it  attains 
through  its  own  free  product — pure  form.  Nor  is 
there  much  more  occasion  for  formally  considering 
decorative  design  than  mechanical  design.  It  is 
true  that  the  filling  up  of  back  ground  may  not  be 
absolutely  necessary  for  the  perfect  revelation  of 
the  main  ideas  of  the  work  ;  but  it  stands  in  much 
closer  connection  with  it  than  the  sculpturing  of  the 
blank  spaces  in  architecture,  or  the  ornamentation 
of  landscape.  So  the  human  figure,  which  land- 


28O  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

scape  or  genre  painting  may  introduce,  in  order  to 
invest  the  representation  with  a  proper  human 
interest,  enters  into  the  essential  nature  of  the 
work,  and  cannot  in  strictness  be  deemed  decoration. 

§  243.  The  law  of  artistic  design  in 
Twofold  law.  painting  is  twofold,  as  it  is  founded 

more  directly  in  the  medium  through 
which  the  artist  reveals,  or  in  his  own  spiritual 
nature. 

i.  Not  only  must  the  artist  in  painting 
ightftreatment°f  use  light  in  conformity  with  its  laws, 

as  that  it  moves  in  right  lines,  is 
variously  reflected,  absorbed,  transmitted,  and  re- 
fracted, according  to  the  nature  of  the  object  on 
which  it  impinges,  but  in  actually  revealing  his  idea 
through  this  medium  in  accordance  with  its  laws, 
there  are  certain  principles  which  he  must  recog- 
nize and  observe. 

§  244.    In  the  first  place,  there  are  the 
*°~    principles  of  Linear  Perspective  and 

Projection  to  be  observed  in  all  repre- 
sentation of  visual  objects.  These  principles  require 
first,  that  one  point  of  view  be  fixed,  from  which  all 
the  objects  represented  are  to  be  viewed.  Next,  we 
have  the  great  law  of  Linear  Perspective,  that  the 
dimensions  of  objects  are  measured  by  the  visual 
angle  which  they  subtend  ;  the  greater  the  distance 
a  given  object  is  from  the  eye  the  smaller  it  appears; 
and  also  if  turned  obliquely  to  the  view  it  will  appear 

less.     Then  come  the  laws  of  Graphic 
gapta  projec-    projectioil)  which  require  that  all  ob- 
jects be  reduced  to  the  one  plane  on 
which  the  representation  is  made. 


Linear 
live. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  28 1 

§  245.    In  the  second  place,  there  are 

Shading. 

the  principles  of  shading  to  be  ob- 
served. 

First,  the  source  and  direction  from 
Direction  ofiight  which  the  light  is  to  be  represented  as 

coming  upon  the  various  objects,  is  to 
be  determined,  and  the  light  and  shade  managed  in 
accordance  with  the  determination.  The  solar  rays 
are  sensibly  parallel,  but  they  may  come  from 
near  the  horizon  or  from  the  zenith,  and  they  alight 
upon  this  or  that  side  of  the  object  illuminated, 
leaving  the  other  in  the  shade,  and  cast  shadows 
accordingly.  Light  from  a  luminary  near  at  hand 
moves  in  divergent  lines,  and  casts  shadows  in  the 
direction  in  which  it  moves  and  in  widening  lines. 
Cross-lights  from  different  sources  modify  all  these 

representations.  Then  we  have  the 
Tone.  gradations  of  shade,  the  principles  of 

half-tint  regulating  the  tone-  of  shade 
to  the  varying  distance  of  the  object  from  the 
assumed  point  of  view — gradations  varying  more 
rapidly  as  the  object  comes  more  directly  in  front. 
Still  farther,  in  addition  to  the  principles  of  shading 
from  the  source  and  direction  of  the  light  and  the 
relative  position  of  the  object,  we  have  .those  prin- 
ciples which  are  furnished  in  the  effect  that  the 
medium  through  which  the  objects  are  seen  has 

upon  their  appearance — the  principles 
Aerial  perspec-  Qf  Aerial  Perspective.  Smoke,  vapor, 

mist,  common  air  when  even  relatively 
clear,  modify  the  effect  of  distant  objects  on  the  eye, 
absorbing  the  light  from  them  and  so  dimming 


282  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

them,  obscuring  and  thus  softening  sharp  outlines, 
as  well  as  imparting  to  them  a  different  hue. 
Here  is  found  a  chief  excellence  in  landscape  paint- 
ing, which  tints  sky,  clouds,  distant  objects  on  land, 
as  their  appearance  is  modified  by  being  seen 
through  the  atmosphere  as  clear,  or  hazy,  or 
smoky. 

§  246.  In  the  third  place,  there  are  the 
Color.  principles  of  color  to  be  regarded. 

Here  we  find  the  law  of  complementary 
colors.  For  illustration,  upon  the  theory  of  but 
three  primary  colors,  red,  yellow,  and  blue,  by  the 
various  combination  of  which  with  white  and  black 
all  different  colors  may  be  formed,  this  aesthetic 
principle  teaches  us  that  any  one  of  these  colors  or 
any  combination  of  them  will  please  best  if  placed 
side  by  side  with  its  complementary  color  or  colors ; 
that  is,  with  such  as,  if  combined  with  it,  would  form 
white  light.  Red,  thus,  is  most  pleasingly  asso- 
ciated with  yellow  and  blue,  or  with  green  ;  yellow 
with  red  and  blue,  or  with  violet ;  and  blue  with 
red  and  yellow,  or  with  orange.  The  explanation 
of  the  ultimate  ground  of  this  remarkable  aesthetic 
law  it  may  be  difficult  to  give  ;  of  the  prevalence  of 
the  law  there  can  be  no  question. 

Here  also  we  find  another  law  of  equal 

ChevereuPs    law  . 

of  contrasted       prevalence.     It   is   called    Chevereul  s 

colors. 

law,  and  is  thus  announced :  "  When 
the  eye  sees  at  the  same  time  two  contiguous 
cobrs,  they  will  appear  as  dissimilar  as  possible, 
both  in  optical  composition  and  in  height  of  tone." 
The  artist  accordingly,  rendering  in  color,  must  in 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  283 

order  to  the  best  aesthetic  effect,  not  only  observe 
the  law  of  complementary  colors,  but  must  also 
regulate  himself  by  this  law  of  contrasted  colors  in 
its  divers  applications.  For  example,  in  order  to 
strong  and  brilliant  effect,  he  must  seek  to  bring 
the  most  dissimilar  colors  in  close  juxtaposition,  so 
that  both  shall  strike  the  eye  at  the  same  time.  In 
order  to  softened  effect,  the  gradation  of  colors 
must  be  without  abruptness  and  sudden  transition 
to  opposite  hues.  If  he  wish  to  give  a  certain  color 
predominance  and  significance,  he  should  seek  to 
set  it  off  by  placing  its  complementary  in  imme- 
diate proximity.  If  he  wish,  on  the  contrary,  to 
prevent  any  color  which  truth  in  representation 
may  oblige  him  to  introduce  from  impressing  the 
eye  because  of  its  disagreeableness  or  for  other 
cause,  he  will  accomplish  his  aim  best  by  grading 
off  with  colors  but  slightly  dissimilar. 

It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind,  moreover,  in  the  use  of 
colored  light,  that  depth  of  color  is  virtually  shade ; 
the  deeper  tints  of  the  same  color  are  shades  to  the 
fainter.  Ruskin  has  correctly  taught :  "  Every 
light  is  a  shadow  compared  to  higher  lights,  till  we 
reach  the  brightness  of  the  sun ;  and  every  shadow 
is  a  light  compared  to  other  shadows,  till  we 
reach  the  darkness  of  night.  Every  color  used  in 
painting,  except  pure  white  and  black,  is  therefore 
a  light  and  a  shade  at  the  same  time.  It  is  a  light 
with  reference  to  all  below  it,  and  a  shade  with 
reference  to  all  above  it."  Thus  it  is  that  some  of 
the  best  efforts  in  painting  are  achieved  by  grada- 
tions of  tints. 


284  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

Here  we  find,  still  farther,  the  law  of 
£ionin°co]or.pres~    expression  in  color.     We  have  before 

recognized  the  fact  that  figure  or  out- 
line is  the  more  natural  expression  of  intellectual 
characteristics ;  while  color  more  naturally  ex- 
presses those  of  feeling.  Why  one  feeling  should 
be  symbolized  by  one  hue  and  another  feeling  by 
another,  it  may  be  as  difficult  to  explain  as  it  is  to 
determine  the  ground  of  the  laws  of  complementary 
and  of  contrasted  colors  ;  but  that  such  is  the  fact 
is  a  matter  of  familiar  experience.  The  principle, 
as  regulative  in  art,  is  twofold :  first,  each  leading 
color  has  its  own  peculiar  expression  ;  secondly,  [/ 
intensity  of  feeling  is  expressed  in  depth  of  hue. 

§  247.  2.  Esthetic  design  is  also  sub- 
Mectuai  prin-  ject  ^o  t^Q  principles  which  preside 

over  all  rational  activity.  We  have 
recognized  these  as  of  the  twofold  character  of  in- 
tellectual and  moral. 

The  several  aesthetic  principles  founded  in  the 
intelligence,  already  enumerated,  of  unity,  contrast, 
aesthetic  number,  proportion,  symmetry,  and  har- 
mony, have  their  obvious  application  to  painting. 

First,  the  law  of  unity  requires  single- 
Unity,  ness  in  the  idea  to  be  represented  and 
singleness  in  the  general  mode  of 
representation.  So  far  as  diversity  of  idea  is  intro- 
duced, the  diverse  must  be  in  such  relation  of 
subordination  that  all  may  be  apprehended  as  one 
whole.  The  lines  of  light,  and  the  shading  and 
coloring  in  kind  and  intensity  of  hue,  should  be  not 
only  compatible  with  singleness  of  object  or  of 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  285 

scene,  but  also  all  point  to  the  governing  object 
represented. 

Most  painting  may  avail  itself  of  a 
Contrast  high  degree  of  the  proper  beauty  of 

contrast.  In  the  idea  and  in  the  ma- 
terial, it  is  admissible  almost  indefinitely.  The 
objects  themselves  in  all  the  diversity  of  their  at- 
tributes and  the  light  and  color  in  all  the  multiplic- 
ity of  their  modifications  admit  of  contrast.  It  is 
the  duty  of  the  artist  to  diversify,  and  in  diversify- 
ing to  present  in  contrast — ever  exhibiting  the  dif- 
ferent, while  making  prominent  the  same  in  the  di- 
versity— the  unity  in  the  variety.  DuFresnoy, 
while  disallowing  the  close  union  of  extreme  oppo- 
sites,  yet  lays  down  the  doctrine  unqualifiedly  that 
diversity  of  objects  will  ever  please. 

Further,  the  law  of  aesthetic  number 
jEstheicnnm-  ijmits  the  representation  in  the  num- 
ber cf  objects  presented.  When  a 
large  variety  must  be  introduced,  grouping  with 
subordination  becomes  indispensable.  In  histori- 
cal painting,  especially  in  battle  scenes,  in  genre 
and  also  in  landscape  painting,  there  is  a  peculiar 
liability  to  introduce  an  excessive  multiplicity  of 
objects  which  distract  and  disturb  the  contempla- 
tion. 

Finally,  the  other  aesthetic  principles  founded  in 
the  intelligence,  of  proportion,  of  symmetry,  and 
of  harmony,  have  their  several  application  so  obvi- 
ously that  it  is  unnecessary  to  enter  into  details  or 
specifications. 
§  248.  EXEMPLIFICATION  OF  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF 


286  LAWS  OF  BEAUTY. 

FORM  IN  PAINTING  IN  THE  HISTORICAL  PROGRESS 
OF  THE  ART. — In  Egypt,  the  mother  of  arts,  we 
find  the  origin  of  the  art  of  painting.  At  a  very  an- 
cient period  the  Egyptians  painted  sculpture  and 
then  painted  walls.  They  painted  the  walls  of  tenv 
pies  and  of  tombs  ;  they  painted  their  mummy  wrap- 
pings ;  they  painted  papyrus  rolls.  But  their  art, 
under  a  most  despotic  restriction  confining  the 
practice  of  the  art  to  families  and  forbidding  all  in- 
novation, only  rose  to  literal  imitation  in  outline 
and  in  color.  They,  however,  represented  ideas 
symbolically. 

§  249.  Grecian  art  sprang  from  Egyptian  seed. 
It  at  first  painted  sculpture  and  ministered  to  that 
art.  But  it  soon  broke  from  this  servitude  and  be- 
came independent.  Polygnotus  of  Thasos,  who 
came  to  Athens  a  little  after  the  middle  of  the  fifth 
century  before  our  era,  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  true 
father  of  Grecian  painting.  He  elevated  the  art  to 
a  noble  independence  and  freedom.  He  threw  life 
and  character  into  his  paintings,  and  inculcated  a 
truly  moral  spirit  by  the  idealized  subjects  which  he 
represented.  But  his  art  was  meagre  in  material. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  century,  Apollodorus  de- 
veloped light  and  shade,  and  was,  as  Pliny  says,  the 
inventor  of  tone.  Zeuxis,  his  pupil,  advanced  the 
art  to  its  perfection  so  far  as  respects  rendering  in 
outline  and  in  light  and  shade  ;  but  up  to  thetime  of 
Apelles,  who  flourished  in  the  period  of  Alexander 
the  Great,  only  four  colors  were  used,  white,  red, 
yellow,  and  black.  Apelles  is  the  prince  of  Gre- 
cian painters,  if  we  may  judge  from  the  descrip- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  287 

tions  given  by  writers  of  his  productions,  for  unfor- 
tunately not  an  original  work  in  ancient  painting 
remains.  By  untiring  and  loving  practice  he  ac- 
quired a  skill  in  rendering,  which  gave  a  matchless 
grace  to  his  productions.  From  him  we  have  the 
maxim  so  indispensable  to  all  eminence  in  art, 
nulla  dies  sine  linea.  Pausias,  of  Sicyon,  his  con- 
temporary, acquired  great  fame  in  encaustic.  The 
Grecians  also  worked  in  distemper. 

§  250.  Roman  art  achieved  no  distinction  in 
painting,  and  did  nothing  towards  the  perfection  of 
the  art. 

Byzantine  art,  from  the  seventh  to  the  thirteenth 
century,  contributed  nothing.  Its  subjects  were 
religious,  and  gave  to  the  art  what  little  inspiration 
it  had ;  but  the  style  was  lifeless  and  smothered 
with  conventionalisms. 

§  25 1.  Modern  Painting  properly  dates 
Florentine.  from  the  thirteenth  century.  It  took 

its  rise  in  Northern  Italy.  Giovanni 
Cimabue,  born  in  Florence  in  1240,  is  accounted, 
with  perhaps  some  overdue  praise,  the  father  of 
modern  painting.  He  broke  from  conventional 
servility  and  in  the  spirit  of  true  art  like  Polygno- 
tus  made  expression  of  idea  or  character  the  great 
aim  in  painting.  Giotto  his  pupil  caught  the  spirit 
of  his  master,  and  far  surpassed  him  in  rendering 
idea.  He  is  accounted  the  first  great  modern 
painter.  His  subjects  were  religious.  He  intro- 
duced natural  coloring  and  wrought  in  fresco.  In 
me  following  century,  Pietro  della  Francesca  and 
Paolo  Uscello  developed  perspective.  Masaccio, 


288  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

born  in  1402,  in  the  brief  period  of  his  life,  as  he 
died  at  the  age  of  27,  brought  to  the  art  the  fresh- 
ness and  vigor  of  earnest  studies  from  life.  Leon- 
ardo de  Vinci,  born  in  1452,  introduced  a  wonderful 
richness  of  design,  and  applied  in  masterpieces  of 
art  the  principles  of  expression  founded  in  the  ra- 
tional intelligence.  His  great  work,  the  Last  Sup- 
per, was  wrought  in  fresco.  He  is  the  prince  of 
the  Florentine  school.  Michael  Angelo,  born  in 
1475,  with  his  characteristic  boldness  and  grandeur 
wrought  in  the  true  spirit  of  Leonardo  de  Vinci, 
exemplifying  the  principles  of  unity,  contrast,  and 
the  kindred  intellectual  principles  of  the  art  in  his 
sublime  frescoes  on  the  ceiling  of  the 
Roman.  Sistinc  Chapel  in  the  Vatican.  Ra- 

phael Sanzio  d'Urbino,  born  in  1483, 
profiting  by  the  study  of  the  Florentine  painters,, 
raised  through  several  noticeable  stages  of  progress 
to  the  highest  excellence,  all  the  elements  of  the 
art,  idea,  material,  form,  so  far  as  these  elements 
had  been  developed  in  his  age.  His  genius  in  in- 
venting, his  skill  and  grace  in  rendering,  are  unsur- 
passed. The  pupil  of  Perugino,  he  won  a  distinct 
glory  for  the  Roman  school,  which  numbers  among 
its  artists  the  great  names  of  Giulio  Romano,  Car- 
avaggio,  and  Andrea  Sacchi.  The  Bo- 
Boiognese.  lognese  school  furnishes  the  equally  il- 

lustrious names  of  the  Carracci,  Do- 
menichirjo-  Guido  Reni,  unsurpassed  in  grace  of 
outline,  Lanfranco,  Albani,  and  Guer- 
cino.  In  Parma,  Antonio  Allegri,  fa- 
miliarly known  under  the  name  of 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  289 

Correggio,  born  in  1493,  perfected  representation 
in  Chiaroscuro  ;  and  the  school  of  Venice  in  which 
we  find  the  great  names  of  Titian,  and 
Venitian.  Tintoretto,    and  Paul  Veronese,  elab- 

orated to  equal  perfectness  representa- 
tion in  color. 

Thus  in  the  various  schools  of  Italy  the  several 
elements  of  the  art,  idea,  material,  rendering,  were 
gradually  elaborated.  That  true  art  consisted  in 
expression  of  idea ;  that  outline,  light  and  shade, 
and  color  must  be  all  under  the  perfect  command 
of  the  artist ;  and  that  grace  in  rendering  is  equally 
indispensable  were  principles  most  fully  and  triumph- 
antly brought  out  and  established  in  these  schools 
in  Italy  in  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  fifteenth,  and 
sixteenth  centuries.  The  continued  advance  of  the 
art  was  thus  to  be  limited  chiefly  if  not  entirely  to 
the  enrichment  of  these  constituent  elements. 
The  idea  had  been  almost  exclusively  religious  and 
historical ;  the  material,  although  far  more  fully 
elaborated,  still  invited  study  and  invention  in  vari- 
ety of  hues,  in  means  and  appliances  of  applying, 
in  surfaces  too  upon  which  light  and  color  were  to 
be  applied ;  and  of  course  a  boundless  field  was 
opened  in  the  essential  element  of  art — execution, 
rendering, — in  which  if  not  richer  merit  in  skill  and 
grace,  yet  enviable  distinction  could  be  won. 

The  end  of  the  sixteenth  and  the  be- 
Landscape.          ginning  of  the   seventeenth    century 
witnessed    the  introduction    of  land- 
scape as  subject.     Peter  Paul  Rubens  of  Antwerp, 
born  in  1577,  Nicolas  Poussin,  born  in  Normandy 


LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

in  1594,  Claude  Lorraine,  born  in  1600,  Salvator 
Rosa,  born  in  Naples  in  1614,  were  successful  cul- 
tivators of  this  department  of  the  art. 

Rembrandt  von  Ryn,  born  in  1606,  with 
Genre.  a  remarkable  fertility  of  invention  as 

well  as  exactness  of  representation,  en- 
larged the  field  of  subjects  for  painting  ;  and  Ten- 
iers  of  Antwerp,  born  in  1610,  laboring  in  the  same 
direction  came  to  be  accredited  as  the  father  of 
proper  genre  painting. 

The  most  recent  art  in  Germany,  France,  Great 
Britain,  and  America,  thus  has  had  the  whole  realm 
of  the  art  already  explored  and  open  to  them  in 
finished  models  exemplifying  its  divers  principles 
in  their  divers  applications :  and  its  proud  roll  of 
successful  artists  shows  that  it  has  been  fully  awake 
to  the  calls  of  the  age  in  which  it  is  privileged  to 
flourish.  v 


SPECIAL   LAWS.  29! 


CHAPTER  IX. 

SPECIAL  LAWS MUSIC. 

§  252.  The  free  art  of  music  takes  us  into  a  field 
of  study  very  far  removed  from  that  which  we  have 
explored  hitherto.  Both  in  idea  and  in  matter  it 
differs,  essentially  from  the  arts  as  yet  considered, 

It  claims  antiquity  of  origin  unexceeded 
origin.  by  any  of  them.  In  the  earliest  stages 

of  history  the  native  propensity  to  the 
expression  of  feeling  easily  led  to  single-voiced 
song ;  and  the  susceptibility  to  impression  from 
musical  sound  invited  to  the  use  of  sounding  instru- 
ments for  its  gratification.  The  feelings  called 
forth  in  religious  worship,  the  excitements  of  festal 
joy,  and  the  enthusiasm  of  battle,  all  strong,  sus- 
tained feeling  shared  in  by  numbers,  found  an  in- 
stinctive utterance  in  music.  At  first,  undoubtedly 
very  simple  and  rude,  mere  prolongation,  perhaps, 
of  the  ordinary  sounds  of  articulate  speech,  or 
mere  beating  of  noisy  instruments,  the  aesthetic 
spirit  fondly  nourished  up  the  art  thus  feebly  begin- 
ing  to  be,  through  the  various  stages  of  melody, 
and  rhythm,  and  harmony,  to  a  maturity  most  mar- 
velously  rich  and  beautiful. 


LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

Music  now  admits  no  superior  in  the 
Rank  sisterhood  of  the  arts,  save  only  per- 

haps that  of  Discourse  and  Poetry,  to 
which  it  has  from  its  origin  been  the  loving  and 
most  serviceable  minister  and  companion.  As  the 
art  whose  exclusive  prerogative  it  is  to  express  feel- 
ing, whose  very  idea  to  be  expressed  is  aesthetic 
form  in  its  large  technical  sense  of  sensibility  im- 
pressed, it  indeed  comes  nearer  to  the  heart  than 
any  other  art.  Music  is  sensibility  immediately 
impressing  sensibility  through  the  medium — sound 
— common  both  to  the  active  imagination  address- 
ing and  to  the  passive  imagination  addressed.  In 
this  art  soul  is  brought  into  closest  contact  with 
soul,  feeling  with  feeling.  In  painting,  some  object 
presented  is  first  taken  up  by  the  imagination  and 
then  expressed  by  it,  and  the  aim  of  the  artist  is 
to  bring  this  object  before  the  sensibility.addressed. 
But  in  music  it  is  not  some  such  foreign  object  it- 
self, but  his  own  soul  as  impressed  by  it,  which  he 
aims  to  communicate.  No  art  therefore  so  directly 
touches  and  moves  the  sensibility  as  music.  Its 
supremacy  in  the  arts  lies  precisely  here,  that  it 
thus  commands  the  inmost  access  to  the  heart, 
while  other  arts  wait  at  an  outer  door. 

§253.  LAW  OF  IDEA  IN  Music.  The 
Feeimg.  grand  distinctive  characteristic  of  mu- 

sic is  that  it  is  the  immediate  express- 
ion of  feeling.  In  the  exactest  nomenclature  of 
mental  science  the  idea  in  music  is  form.  That  is, 
it  is  the  human  soul  as  impressed,  as  passive  conse- 
quently and  shaped,  not  as  impressing,  not  as  ac- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  293 

tive  and  shaping.  This  kind  of  idea  in  distinction 
from  ideas  of  knowing  and  willing,  from  cognitions 
and  volitions,  it  is  the  prerogative  of  music  to  take  as 
iis  content  and  to  express.  This  is  the  fundamen- 
tal and  all-governing  law  of  music  that  it  expresses 
immediately  and  only  feeling. 

§  254.  Feeling  is  diversified  in  two  different 
ways — in  kind  and  in  degree ;  music  accordingly  is 
variously  shaped  and  determined  in  these  two  ways 
by  its  idea. 

i.  Feeling  is  diversified  by  the  con- 
Kmdsoffeei-  stituents  that  enter  into  it.  In  its 
simplest  and  lowest  form  it  is  mere  sen- 
sibility awakened  or  stirred  by  some  object  coming 
in  from  without  or  coming  forth  from 
simple  feeling.  one's  own  experience.  By  these  ob- 
jects it  is  variously  colored.  The  com- 
prehensive hues,  are  those  of  joy  or  sorrows  of 
pleasure  or  pain  ;  but  they  are  shaded  from  the  al- 
most colorless  serenity  of  an  unmoved  soul,  up 
through  the  gradations  of  cheerfulness,  gladness, 
to  the  brightness  of  ecstatic  joy,  or  down  through 
sadncc^,  gloom,  to  the  deepest  sorrow.  But  it  is 
mere  unmixed  sensibility,  modified  only  in  respect 
to  the  object  which  addresses  and  moves  it.  There 
is  the  serenity  of  a  self-complacent  spirit,  and  the 
serenity  of  a  soul  in  harmony  with  the  universe 
around  it.  Thus  there  is  sensibi^ty  subjectively 
awakened' and  sensibility  objectively  awakened  and 
running  through  all  the  gradations  indicated. 
There  is  penitence,  for  example,  or  feeling  stirred  by 
sense  of  personal  wrong-doing  ;  there  is  sorrow  for 


294  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

suffering  that  another  is  seen  to  experience.  So 
the  innumerable  objects  addressing  the  soul  from 
without  itself  or  bodied  forth  from  its  own  experi- 
ence by  an  ever  active  imagination,  each  colors  with 
its  own  proper  hue  the  feeling  which  it  calls  forth. 
With  an  inexhaustible  richness  of  idea  is  the  art  of 
music  endowed  in  these  countless  modifications  of 
the  mere  sensibility. 

§  255.  But  this  sensibitity  may  be 
Sympathy.  modified,  may  be  enlarged  and  en- 

hanced by  the  admission  into  it  of  a 
true  sympathy.  Often  objects  move  us,  they  excite 
our  joy  or  move  our  grief,  while  our  spirits  do  not 
look  out  upon  them  ;  they  are  passively  and  blindly 
affected  by  them  to  pleasure  or  to  pain.  But  as  hav- 
ing a  common  origin  and  parentage  with  the  uni- 
verse around  us,  our  natures  are  sympathetic  in 
their  very  essence.  Our  awakened  sensibility 
tends  to  go  out  and  to  respond  to  the  calls  by 
which  it  is  awakened.  A  new  element  thus  enters 
the  excited  feeling.  It  is  feeling  in  sympathy  or, 
it  may  be,  in  antipathy  toward  its  object.  There 
is  acccrdingly  music  that  is  merely  sensitive  feel- 
ing ;  and  there  is  music  also  that  is  more  than  this ; 
that  expresses  a  true  sympathy ;  a  yearning  to  be 
united  with  the  object  that  has  stirred  it  or  that  it 
would  itself  stir.  There  is  a  music  that  expresses 
more  than  pleasure  or  joy ;  or  more  than  pain  or 
sorrow ;  that  breathes  forth  in  addition  a  joyful 
complacency  or  a  sympathetic  grief ;  a  glad  satis- 
faction and  contentment  or  a  displeasure  and  dis- 
content ;  a  fond  affection  or  a  repelling  anger  and 
aversion  ;  love  or  hate. 


;  SPECIAL    LAWS. 

§  256.  Still  a  third  modification  of  the 
Hope  and  fear,  sensibility  emerges  when  there  appears 

not  only  sympathy  with  the  object  but 
actual  desire  and  longing  for  it ;  when  sympathy  or 
antipathy  passes  into  hope  or  fear.  And  here  we 
find  all  the  intermediate  gradations  between  the 
most  confident  and  assured  and  exulting  hope  on 
the  one  hand  down  through  mere  hopelessness  and 
despair  of  good  to  the  deepest  fear  of  evil  and  the 
stormiest  terror  and  shock  of  alarm. 

§  257.  2.  All  these  divers  modifica- 
Degrees  of  feel-  j-jons  of  ^Q  sensibility  are  susceptible 

of  higher  or  lower  degrees  of  intensity. 
As  already  intimated,  joy  intensifies  from  a  simply 
bright  serenity  to  the  highest  ecstasies  of  rapture ; 
and  sorrow  from  the  merest  sadness  to  the  deepest 
anguish. 

In  this  unlimited  diversity  of  feelings  in  kind 
and  degree,  the  art  of  music  has  an  unbounded 
wealth  of  idea  to  express. 

§  258.    The  law  of  idea  requires  that 

Music   must   ex-  '          .  .  . 

press  feeling  as    the  artist  in  music  find  that  which  he 

its  one  idea. 

is  to  express  in  his  art  in  this  large 
but  well-defined  field  of  idea.  It  is  his  province  to 
express  not  the  object  of  a  feeling  ; — not  that  which 
may  have  awakened  the  feeling  in  his  own  bosom, 
but  the  feeling  itself.  The  terror  which  he  aims  to 
express  may  be  differently  colored  in  some  respect 
according  as  it  is  awakened  by  an  earthquake  or 
by  a  thunder  storm ;  by  the  assault  of  a  raging 
beast  of  prey  or  an  outburst  of  human  passion  ;  by 
alarms  from  without  or  from  within.  But  it  is  the 


LAWS   OF   BEAUTY. 

so  colored  feeling  in  his  own  imagination,  not  the 
coloring  object  itself ;  it  is  the  quaking,  shudder- 
ing soul,  not  the  quaking,  shuddering  earth  or  storm 
which  he  is  to  set  forth  in  music.  To  attempt  to 
imitate  the  tremblings  of  the  earth  or  the  reverber- 
ations of  the  rolling  thunder  is  to  go  out  of  the  pre- 
scribed field  of  idea  in  music  ;  it  is  to  violate  the 
fundamental  law  of  the  art ;  it  is  certain  to  be  more 
or  less  suicidal.  That  there  are  sounds  in  nature 
which  musical  art  can  in  a  true  literal  sense  imi- 
tate, can  repeat  both  in  respect  to  relative,  perhaps 
in  some  cases,  in  respect  to  absolute  pitch  and  vol- 
ume, and  quality  of  sound,  and  quickness  of  suc- 
cession, is  certainly  true.  But  music,  as  the  art 
whose  governing  idea  is  feeling,  must  represent 
that,  not  the  object  which  awakens  it.  So  far  as 
these  musical  sounds  in  nature  are  expressive  of 
certain  feelings,  and  they  are  all  to  be  interpreted 
as  thus  expressive,  the  art  of  music  expressing  the 
same  feelings  through  the  same  medium  of  sound 
will  of  course  use  the  same  movements  in  quality, 
pitch,  volume,  and  velocity  ;  but  it  is  still  the  feel- 
ing which  music  is  to  express,  not  the  object  which 
expresses  the  feeling.  Not  the  caroling  bird,  but 
the  feeling  of  which  its  carols  are  the  natural  ex- 
pression, is  that  which  the  musical  artist  is  alone 
concerned  to  embody  in  sound. 

This  law  of  idea  in  music  must  not  be  interpreted 
as  if  the  artist  must  lay  aside  his  intelligence  or  his 
voluntary  activity.  Feeling  is  but  one  side  of  a 
feeling,  thinking,  willing  spirit.  All  feeling  is  ever 
intelligent  and  free,  even  although  it  so  predonv 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  2Q? 

inates  in  the  experience  as  to  eclipse  to  our  View 
those  other  coordinate  constituents  of  the  human 
soul.  Never  must  it  be  forgotten  that  all  feeling  is 
the  affection  of  a  rational  spirit,  which  never  lays 
aside  its  essential  character.  Yet  it  remains  that  a 
true  artist  in  music,  a  true  Mozart,  breathes  into  his 
sounds  only  the  modifications  of  his  own  feeling 
soul.  It  is  his  duty  to  put  himself  first  into  a  pure 
mood  of  feeling  by  free  surrender  of  his  sensibility 
to  the  object  which  awakens  it,  and  to  suffer  his 
own  soul  to  be  moved  freely  undistractedly  to  its 
proper  feeling,  and  then  reecho  in  song  or  instru- 
mental strain  the  feeling  thus  awakened  and 
shaped.  He  may  need  to  bring  in  the  aid  of  all 
other  faculties  and  resources  to  keep  his  soul  under 
the  impressing  power  of  its  object ;  he  may  need  to 
recur  to  memory,  to  imagination,  to  help  him  to 
sustain  this  feeling ;  but  never,  as  some  unsuccess- 
ful artists  have  done,  attempt  to  render  any  thing 
in  sound  but  the  modifications  in  kind  and  degree 
of  his  own  feeling  soul. 

§  259.  Hence  the  fundamental  condi- 
SShSSi""1"  tion  of  culture  in  musical  art  is  the 

feeding  and  training  of  the  sensibility 
under  the  laws  of  its  nature.  It  is  effected  only  by 
freeing  the  soul  to  the  full  and  legitimate  impres- 
sion of  right  formed,  of  proper  aesthetic  objects 
from  without,  and  particularly  of  sounds  ;  by  the 
development  of  sympathy  through  loving  inter- 
course with  whatever  is  lovely  ;  and  by  the  exercise 
of  all  true  human  affection. 


298  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

§  260.  LAW  OF  MATERIAL  IN  Music. 
Sound.  The  art  of  music  addresses  the  ear 

through  sound.  Not  all  sounds,  how- 
ever, are  to  be  regarded  as  musical ;  only  such,  in- 
deed, as  are  caused  by  uniform  vibrations  of  the 
air  reaching  the  ear.  All  the  different  effects  of 
music  are  produced  by  divers  modifications  of  these 
vibrations. 

§  261.    There  are  four  different  ways 
don^ounl3"      in  which  vibrations  in  musical  sound 
may  be  varied.     First,  they  may  be  va- 
ried in  respect  to  the  velocity,  or  the  number  of  vi- 
brations in  a  given  measure  of  time. 
Pitch.  Such  variations  give  the  different  de- 

grees of  musical  Pitch.  While  differ- 
ent ears  vary  in  respect  to  their  susceptibility  to 
sound,  no  human  ear  can  be  sensible  of  musical 
sound,if  the  vibrations  of  air  that  fall  upon  it  are 
slower  than  at  the  rate  of  thirty  in  a  second  ;  or  as 
sound  moves  at  about  1125  feet  in  a  second,  if  the 
waves  are  less  than  about  thirty-eight  feet  in  length. 
Nor  can  a  sound  be  heard,  if  the  vibrations  are 
quicker  than  at  the  rate  of  two  thousand  in  a  sec- 
ond. The  musical  note  denominated  middle  C  in 
the  treble  clef  is  the  effect  of  between  two  hundred 
and  fifty  and  two  hundred  and  sixty  vibrations  or 
waves  of  musical  sound  in  a  second — the  pitch  of 
this  note  varying  of  course  with  the  standard  which 
is  slightly  different  in  different  countries  and  for 
different  purposes. 

It  is  found,  now,  that  the  relations  of  different 
musical  sounds  are  in  an  almost  exact  correspond- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  2QQ 

ence  with  certain  mathematical  ratios,  which  even 
nature,  as  if  musically  constituted,  observes.  Thus 
a  string  or  cord  tensely  drawn,  as  in  the  familiar 
./Eolian  harp,  so  that  the  air  may  suitably  put  it  in 
vibration,  will  as  the  force  of  the  wind  varies  give 
a  certain  succession,  sometimes  a  simultaneous 
combination  of  sounds  which  is  exceedingly  agree- 
able to  the  ear.  If  a  string,  moreover,  vibrating  at 
its  full  length,  give  forth  a  certain  note,  and  then  be 
divided  into  two  equal  parts,  each  half  of  the  string 
will  with  the  same  tension  and  the  same  force  ap- 
plied to  it,  vibrate  twice  as  many  times  in  a  second 
and  produce  another  note  which  has  an  agreeable 
musical  relation  to  the  first.  If  the  string  thus  at 
full  length  vibrate  255  times  in  a  second,  and  pro- 
duce middle  C,  each  half  will  vibrate  5 10  times  and 
produce  a  note  called  the  octave  of  C  and  in  per- 
fect accord  with  it.  Vibrating  through  one  half  of 
this,  or  1 020  times  a  second,  it  gives  a  note  an 
octave  above  this  and  so  on.  Farther,  between  any 
note  and  its  octave,  there  are  intermediate  divisions 
of  the  string  with  corresponding  rates  of  vibration 
at  which  sounds  are  produced  agreeable  to  the  ear. 
Some  of  these  intervening  sounds  are  such  as  the 
string  will  give  forth  as  it  variously  divides  itself 
and  so  varies  its  vibrations  with  the  varying  force 
of  the  wind.  The  principle  is  this  :  that  any  two 
sounds  are  in  more  perfect  accord  as  the  different 
vibrations  of  air  which  produce  them,  coincide  in 
the  greatest  frequency.  Thus  two  vibrations,  one 
of  which  moves  twice  as  quick  as  the  other,  will  co- 
incide in  each  of  the  slower  vibrations  and  each  al- 


3<X>  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

ternate  one  of  the  quicker.  If,  instead  of  double 
or  as  two  to  one,  the  time  of  the  one  vibration 
be  to  that  of  the  other  as  three  to  two,  the  co- 
incidence will  be  only  in  every  second  of  the  slower 
and  every  third  of  the  quicker  ;  the  combination  of 
these  sounds  is  agreeable  to  the  ear,  but  not  as  per- 
fectly so  as  the  former. 

§  262.  Thus  it  is  found  that  there  are,  between. 
a  given  note  and  its  octave,  six  notes  which  are  ir* 
a  special  musical  relation  to  one  another.  They 

constitute  what  is  called,  the  Diatonic 
Diatonic  scale.  scale.  The  vibrations  producing  these 

notes  are  severally  proportioned  to  the 
first  note  called  in  this  relation  the  key  note,  as  fol- 
lows :  the  number  of  vibrations  in  a  second  of  time 
producing  the  second  note  in  this  scale,  rising  from 
the  key  note  to  its  next  higher  octave,  is  to  the 
number  of  vibrations  producing  the  key  note  as  9 
to  8  ;  the  third,  as  5  to  4  ;  the  fourth,  as  4  to  3  ; 
the  fifth,  as  3  to  2  ;  the  sixth,  as  5  to  3  ;  the  sev- 
enth, as  15  to  8  ;  tTie  eighth  or  octave,  as  2  to  i. 
In  other  words,  if  the  first  note  in  the  scale  be  pro- 
duced by  240  vibrations,  the  second  will  be  by  270  ; 
the  third  by  300 ;  the  fourth  by  320  ;  the  fifth  by 
360 ;  the  sixth  by  400 ;  the  seventh  by  450  ;  the 
octave  by  480.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  coinciden- 
ces in  the  vibrations  or  waves  of  the  octave  with 
the  vibrations  of  the  key  note — the  first  or  prime — 
are  more  frequent  than  with  those  of  any  other. 
Next  comes  the  fifth  ;  then  the  fourth.  And  the 
coincidences  with  those  of  the  seventh  are  less  fre- 
quent than  with  those  of  any  other  note. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  3OI 

§  263.  Further  if  we  compare  these 
£?ahnd  min°r  numbers  with  each  other  we  shall  see 

that  the  ratio  of  the  vibrations  produc- 
ing the  first  to  those  producing  the  second,  240  to 
270  or  8  to  9,  is  the  same  as  the  ratio  between  those 
producing  the  fourth  and  fifth  or  320  to  360,  and  also 
the  sixth  and  seventh,  400  to  450,  each  being  as  8  to 
9.  The  ratios  between  the  second  and  third,  270  to 
300,  and  the  fifth  and  sixth,  360  to  400,  are  also  the 
same — 9  to  10.  Here  accordingly  are  two  classes 
of  intervals,  each  class  differing  from  the  other, 
yet  so  slightly  as  compared  with  the  others,  that 
they  are  all  denominated  major  intervals  or  full 
tones.  The  difference,  however,  is  too  great  to  be 
disregarded  in  musical  composition.  The  ratios 
between  the  third  and  fourth,  300  to  320,  and  the 
seventh  and  eighth,  450  to  480,  are  the  same  with 
each  other — 15  to  16 — but  much  greater  than  the 
others.  These  two  intervals  are  called  in  distinc- 
tion from  the  others,  minor  intervals  or  semi-tones. 
Technically  all  these  intervals  from  one  note  to  the 
next  above  or  below  are  termed  degrees  or  steps. 
The  same  relations  exist  between  the  intervals 
in  the  second  or  next  higher  octave.  The  numbers 
designating  the  proportionate  vibrations  will  only 
be  double  those  of  the  first  or  lower  octave.  They 
will  be,  480  ;  540 ;  600 ;  640  ;  720  ;  800 ;  900  ;  960. 

§  264.  On  the  relations  of  these  in- 
chordo.  tervals  as  thus  determined  between  an 

assumed  key  note  or  prime  and  the 
other  notes  mentioned  is  founded  the  science  of 
Harmony  in  music.  It  distinguishes  the  intervals 


3O2  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

into  Consonances  which  stand  in  a  relation  to  each 
other  that  satisfies  the  ear,  of  which  the  octave, 
fifth,  and  as  maintained  by  some  the  fourth,  are  per- 
fect or  complete,  and  the  third  and  sixth  are  imperfect 
or  incomplete,  and  Dissonances  which  are  the  second 
and  seventh.  Moreover,  the  intervals  are  distin- 
guished as  major  and  minor.  A  major  second  thus 
consists  ol  one  full  tone  or  two  semi-tones ;  the 
minor  second  of  one  semi-tone  ;  the  major  third  of 
four  semi-tones,  the  minor  third  of  three  semi-tones, 
and  so  on.  The  Harmonies  or  Chords  which  are 
found  by  combining  tones  from  different  intervals 
for  musical  effect  are  I.  independent,  as  major  triads 
formed  by  the  combination  of  the  prime  or  funda- 
mental note  with  the  major  third  and  fifth  together 
with  the  minor  ttiads  formed  of  the  first,  the  minor 
third,  and  the  fifth,  or  2.  not  independent,  as  the 
chords  of  the  seventh  which  are  formed  by  the  ad- 
dition of  a  seventh  to  a  triad.  These  intervals 
may  be  varied,  by  raising  or  lowering  the  prime  or 
any  other  note  in  the  scale  a  half  of  a  tone  interval. 
The  chords  also  receive  divers  modifications,  ac- 
cording as  they  are  founded  on  the  key  note  or 
triad,  when  we  have  the  Tonic  Triad ;  or  on  the 
fifth,  giving  the  Dominant  Triad ;  or  on  the  fourth, 
giving  the  Sub-dominant  Triad.  Each  of  these  is 
still  further  modified  by  changing  the  relative  posi- 
tion on  the  scale  of  the  three  constituents,  giving 
rise  to  the  distinction  of  primitive  and  derivative 
chords.  These  three  triads  are  distinguished  from 
triads  founded  on  the  second,  third,  sixth,  and  sev- 
enth degrees  of  the  scale  ; — the  former  being  called 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  303 

primary,  the  latter  secondary  triads.     The  chords  of 
the  seventh  admit  of  analogous  modifications. 

§  265.  Moreover  the  tonic  itself  may 
Modulation.  be  at  any  point  in  the  scale  ;  and  in  a 

musical  movement,  this  point  may  be 
changed.  This  digression  from  one  key  to  another 
is  now  called  modulation,  or  to  distinguish  it  from 
the  progressive  arrangement  of  harmonies  for  a 
given  melody,  digressive  modulation.  This  change 
can  with  musical  effect  often  be  accomplished  only 
with  proper  preparation  and  gradually,  imposing 
Jaws  which  the  artist  must  strictly  observe. 

§  266.  Still  more,  changes  in  pitch  can 
skips  and  slides,  be  effected  either  by  a  skip  of  the 

voice  from  one  tone  to  another — dis- 
cretely, or  by  a  continuous  slide — concretely.  The 
voice  can  effect  this  change  in  pitch  in  either  way  ; 
the  pianoforte  only  discretely. 

§  267.  If  now  we  suppose  to  be  given 
Counterpoint  a  melody  or  a  succession  of  musical 

sounds  the  nature  of  such  sounds  re- 
quires that  any  addition  to  it  of  one  or  more  parts, 
so  as  to  form  chords  or  harmonies  with  its  several 
notes,  should  be  made  in  certain  ways  that  musical 
science  indicates  and  prescribes.  This  part  of  the  sci- 
ence called  Counterpoint  directs  what  chords  may 
be  used  in  succession  and  how  they  may  be  intro- 
duced and  treated.  Thus  the  musical  ear  demands 
that  a  musical  composition  begin  and  end  with  per- 
fect concords ;  that  discords  be  introduced  only  in 
transition  ;  that  perfect  concords  of  the  same  de- 
gree never  succeed  one  another  ;  for  example,  that 


304  LAWS   OF   BEAUTY. 

consecutive  fifths  or  simultaneous  movements 
through  a  fifth  in  any  two  of  the  parts  of  a  har- 
mony be  avoided  because  such  movements  being 
on  different  tones  cannot  perfectly  harmonize. 

§  268.  As  a  mood  of  feeling  to  be  expressed  in 
musical  sound  must  be  presented  as  prolonged  and 
while  thus  prolonged  as  necessarily  subject  to  cer- 
tain specific  modifications  which  shall  yet  not  de- 
stroy its  general  character,  if  this  mood  of  feeling 
be  introduced  as  a  subject  or  theme  for  musical 
composition  the  nature  of  sound  as  musical  pre- 
scribes certain  principles  for  regulating  the  pro- 
longed expression.  Hence  arises  the 
imitation.  department  of  Imitation  in  musical  sci- 

ence which  directs  how  this  theme  is 
to  be  taken  up  successively  by  the  different  parts  ; 
while  the  doctrine  of  the  Fugue  fills 
Fugue.  out  the  entire  treatment  of  a  the^me 

for  two  or  more  voices,  as  to  character, 
length,  mode  of  imitation,  and  the  like,  so  far  as  the 
mere  nature  of  musical  sounds  in  relation  to  each 
other  in  respect  to  melody  or  harmony  is  concerned. 
§  269.  Secondly,  musical  vibrations 
2.  Force.  may  vary  in  respect  to  their  extent ;  as 

a  pendulum,  swinging  at  the  same 
rate  so  many  times  in  a  second,  may  swing  through 
a  longer  or  shorter  arc.  The  longer  the  vibration, 
the  louder  the  sound.  This  relation  of  musical 
sounds  to  one  another  gives  rise  to  the  distinc- 
tion of  Force.  It  is  a  constituent  that  enters  largely 
into  music.  The  various  modifications  of  sound  in 
respect  to  force  as  combined  with  other  elements 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  305 

furnish  the  matter  of  the  department   of  musical 
science  called  Dynamics. 

§  270.  Thirdly,  musical  vibrations  may 
3.  Quality.  vary  not  only  in  respect  to  their  veloc- 

ity and  extent  but  also  in  regard  to  their 
form,  giving  rise  to  the  distinctions  of  Quality, 
French  Timbre.  The  quality  of  musical  sounds 
having  the  same  pitch  and  force  thus  varies  with 
the  body  which  by  vibrating  produces  the  sound. 
Wood,  metal,  glass,  each  gives  forth  a  peculiar 
quality  of  sound. 

The  quality  of  the  sound  varies  also  with  the 
mode  in  which  the  sounding  body  is  put  in  vibra- 
tion. Musical  instruments  are  distinguished  in 
this  respect  into  the  general  classes  of  Wind  Instru- 
ments, as  the  Flute,  the  Clarionet  and  others  of 
wood,  and  the  Horn,  Bugle,  and  others  of  metal ; 
Stringed  Instruments,  as  the  Harp,  the  Violin,  etc. ; 
and  Instruments  of  Percussion,  as  the  Cymbal,  Tri- 
angle, Tambourine,  Drum,  etc.  There  are  moreo- 
ver modifications  of  these  general  modes  ;  as  in  the 
case  of  Wind  Instruments  the  quality  varies  accord- 
ing as  the  vibrations  are  caused  directly  by  the 
breath  as  in  the  Flute  or  through  a  reed  as  in  the 
Clarionet.  In  Stringed  Instruments,  the  quality 
varies  according  as  the  cord  is  vibrated  by  friction 
or  by  the  bow  of  the  violinist  or  by  traction  as 
when  the  harpist  and  occasionally  the  violinist 
pulls  the  string  out  of  line  to  give  it  motion,  or  by 
percussion  as  in  the  pianoforte,  or  as  the  violinist 
occasionally  strikes  the  strings  with  his  bow.  The 
skilled  player  varies  the  quality  of  sound  by  a  still 


3O6  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

more  special  mode  of  putting  the  body  into  vibra- 
tion. Paganini  would  draw  from  the  same  string 
a  great  diversity  of  sounds  by  divers  ways  of  draw- 
ing his  bow.  The  human  voice  especially  is  sus- 
ceptible of  giving  forth  a  great  diversity  of  sounds 
in  respect  of  quality,  and  it  is  in  the  power  to  pro- 
duce these  different  sounds  with  facility  and  fitly 
that  excellence  in  vocal  music  greatly  consists. 

The  quality  of  musical  sound  varies,  further,  with 
the  character  of  the  bodies  on  which  the  vibrations 
or  waves  of  sound  fall.  Even  the  state  of  the  at- 
mosphere to  some  extent  affects  it.  If  the  vibra- 
tions are  made  to  pass  through  confined  spaces,  as 
these  passages  are  tubular  or  not,  as  they  swell  and 
contract  or  otherwise,  as  they  are  smooth  or  not, 
their  quality  is  so  far  modified.  If,  still  more,  the 
vibrations  are  reflected,  the  quality  will  vary  with 
the  character  of  the  reflecting  surface.  A  lining  of 
silk  thus  over  the  chest  of  keys  in  a  melodeon 
gives  it  a  peculiar  quality  very  different  from  mere 
wood.  The  quality  of  a  pianoforte  depends  to  a 
great  degree  on  the  character  of  the  sounding 
board  ;  two  instruments  made  by  the  same  artisan 
from  the  same  material,  after  the  same  style  and 
with  the  same  skill  and  care,  being  often  so  very 
unlike  that  one  will  be  condemned  as  poor  while 
the  other  will  be  accepted  as  of  remarkably  sweet 
and  mellow  tones. 

§  271.     Fourthly,    musical    vibrations 
Quantity.  may    vary  in  respect   to  the    time  of 

their  continuance.     There  arises  hence 
the  distinction  of  long  and  short  notes,  or  musical 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  307 

Quantity  and  also  that  of  slow  and  quick  move- 
ments in  the  succession  of  notes.  Combined  with 
force,  this  element  of  time  constitutes  the  depart- 
ment in  musical  science  denominated  Rhythm. 

§  272.  The  two  comprehensive  laws  of 
m«eril?.  law  °f  material  in  music  are  accordingly  the 
following: — I.  Sounding  bodies  must 
be  used,  each  according  to  its  own  proper  nature 
and  for  the  peculiar  expression  to  which  it  is  fitted. 
2.  Musical  sound  itself,  as  produced  by  vibrations 
of  air,  must  be  used  as  medium  of  expression 
according  to  its  own  properties. 

§  273.  III.  LAW  OF  FORM  IN  Music. — The  free 
art  of  music,  like  painting,  has  lent  a  most  beneficent 
ministry  to  other  ends  —  to  those  of  religion,  of 
warfare,  of  sport  and  recreation  ;  but  it  ever  retains 
its  proper  freedom  and  ministers  only  as  pure  form. 
In  order  to  its  perfection,  therefore,  the  art  must 
never  look  out  of  itself,  but  only  seek  to  express  its 
idea  through  its  appointed  medium  in  its  most  full 
and  perfect  form.  There  is  consequently  no  proper 
occasion  for  mechanical  design  in  the  exercise  of 
the  art  itself. 

Decoration  enters  more  freely  than  in  painting. 
Yet  so  closely  does  it  ally  itself  with  the  expression 
of  the  main  idea  that  it  would  be  difficult,  at  least  it 
would  be  inexpedient,  here  to  draw  an  exact  line  of 
discrimination.  Feeling  is  characteristically  exu- 
berant ;  it  surges  and  sinks,  it  swells  and  ripples,  it 
rolls  and  dashes,  it  masses  into  driving,  whelming 
flood,  or  breaks  into  yielding  foam  or  misty  spray, 
like  the  ocean  tide.  Its  ripples  and  its  spray  yet 


3O8  LAWS  OF    BEAUTY. 

move  on  in  the  same  tidal  direction  with  the  swell 
and  the  billow.  Whatever  be  the  mood  of  feeling 
to  be  expressed  in  music,  it  will  ever  seek  to  pour 
itself  out  and  fill  all  offering  channels  of  outflow. 

§  274.  The  Law  of  Artistic  Design  in  Music,  as 
in  Painting,  is  modified  in  a  twofold  way,  according 
as  it  respects  the  medium  through  which  the 
expression  is  made  or  the  feeling  to  be  expressed — 
the  sound-side  or  the  idea-side. 

i.  In  the  use  of  sounds  for  the  expres- 
Rhythm.  sion  of  feeling,  there  are  certain  princi- 

ples to  be  observed.  In  the  first  place 
there  is  the  necessity  of  observing  the  principles  of 
Rhythm,  which  rest  on  the  combination  of  Force  of 
sound  with  Time.  Rhythm  may  be  defined  as  the 
union  of  force  and  time  in  the  succession  of  musical 
sounds  so  that  the  variations  of  force  shall  corres- 
pond with  the  measures  of  time.  Rhythm  varies 
accordingly  (i)  with  the  accent  or  the  degree  of  rela- 
tive force  between  the  successive  sounds,  giving 
accented  and  unaccented  sounds  in  a  given  measure 
of  time  ;  and  (2)  with  the  ratio  in  number  between 
the  accented  and  unaccented  sounds,  giving  the 
varieties  of  Double,  Triple,  Quadruple,  and  Sextuple 
measure. 

Rhythm  is  probably  the  earliest  mode  of  musical 
expression.  It  is  the  only  element  in  the  music  of 
the  simplest  kind  of  instruments  of  percussion,  as 
the  drum,  the  cymbal,  the  tambourine.  Savage  life 
employs  it  in  the  dance  and  also  in  the  ministries 
of  religious  rites.  The  most  ancient  instruments  of 
Egyptian  music  were  purely  rhythmical,  as  the  tri- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  309 

angular  lyre,  the  kettle-drum,  and  the  sistrum. 
The  most  cultivated  music  builds  on  it  as  its  funda- 
mental element,  but  cannot  dispense  with  it  in  any 
part  of  the  superstructure. 

§  275.  In  the  second  place,  the  princi- 
Meiody.  pies  of  Melody,  founded  on  the  relative 

pitch  of  sounds,  are  to  be  observed  in 
musical  expression.  Melody  may  be  denned  as 
pitch  in  succession.  It  has  two  grand  divisions,  the 
major  and  the  minor  scales,  according  as  the  semi- 
tone occurs  in  the  fourth  and  seventh  or  the  third 
and  sixth  degrees  from  the  tonic  or  key-note.  The 
one  is  characteristically  bold  and  exulting,  the  other 
is  tender  and  plaintive.  Rhythm  expresses  the 
strength  or  intensity  of  feeling  ;  melody  the  moods 
of  feeling,  especially  as  continued  and  prolonged. 

§  276.  In  the  third  place,  there  are  the 
Harmony.  principles  of  Harmony  founded  on  the 

contemporaneous  union  of  sounds  to  be 
observed.  It  is  a  combination  of  different  melodies 
In  rhythm  united  on  the  principles  of  the  chord. 

§  277.  In  the  fourth  place,  there  are  to 
Dynamics,  be  observed  the  principles  of  musical 

Dynamics,  founded  on  the  variations  of 
sound  in  respect  not  only  of  volume  or  force  but 
also  of  number  of  melodies  and  of  instruments.  A 
single  tone  may  be  relatively  loud  or  soft ;  it  may 
continue  uniform  in  volume  or  swell  with  more  or 
less  suddenness.  The  number  of  melodies  com- 
bined may  be  more  or  fewer  ;  and  the  number  and 
diversity  of  voices  and  instruments  may  be  greater 
or  less.  Musical  Dynamics  regulates  all  these 


3IO  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

modes  of  varying  the  expression.  The  musical 
composer  needs  to  be  practically  familiar  with  all 
that  it  prescribes  in  order  to  attain  to  the  fullest 
and  largest  power  of  expression,  and  to  give  forth 
its  exactest  shade  and  color. 

§  278.  The  laws  of  Form,  that  look  rather  to  the 
idea-side  of  musical  expression  and  are  founded  on 
the  vital  relationship  of  feeling  to  the  other  de- 
partments of  our  rational  nature,  have  here  the 
same  application  as  in  the  other  arts,  but  specifi- 
cally modified. 

The  Law  of  Unity  requires  not  that 
Unity.  a  given  musical  composition  should  be 

confined  to  a  single  emotion,  but  hav- 
ing a  broader  foundation  in  the  unity  of  the  feeling 
soul,  only  requires  that  the  parts  which  wake  up 
the  whole  change  of  feeling  to  be  expressed  be 
such  as  can  subsist  in  harmonious  succession  in  the 
human  soul.  Feeling  is  proverbially  changeful.  As- 
the  sensibility  is  touched  from  without,  it  responds 
in  the  exultations  of  joy  or  the  depressions  of 
wo,  according  to  its  divers  interpretations  of  what 
is  intended  in  the  object  that  addresses  it.  The 
tears  of  sorrow  become  at  once  the  outflow  of  joy 
as  the  address  to  the  feelings  is  apprehended  to  be 
not  a  message  of  evil  but  of  good.  Fear  in  the 
same  way  almost  instantly  changes  to  hope  as  the 
passive  imagination  passes  from  its  contemplation 
of  the  cloud  to  the  bow  that  rests  upon  it.  So 
love  and  hate  alternate  as  the  voice  is  varied  as  that 
of  a  friend  or  foe.  The  finite  nature  cannot  inter- 
pret infallibly  what  is  addressed  to  it ;  and  its  re- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  311 

sponses  in  feeling  vary  with  the  various  interpreta- 
tion. The  law  of  unity  which  is  peremptory  for 
all  art,  must  therefore  in  its  application  be  recog- 
nized as  requiring  only  what  is  possible  in  the 
changing  experiences  of  any  single  soul.  In  dra- 
matic musical  composition,  in  which  different  char- 
acters are  represented  in  their  diversity  of  feelings, 
the  principle  of  unity  has  a  larger  interpretation 
Generally  it  may  be  said  that  the  law  of  unity  in 
music  is  determined  by  the  compatibility  of  the 
possible  objects  which  can  awaken  the  feeling  with 
one  another  in  the  order  of  nature  and  of  event. 
It  embraces  thus  the  two  requisitions :  first,  that 
the  changes  of  feeling  represented  be  such  that  the 
human  soul  can,  in  the  supposed  circumstances,  ex- 
perience them ;  and  secondly,  that  they  can  be 
awakened  in  such  a  soul  by  possible  objects  ad- 
dressing it. 

The  specific  working  out  of  this  principle  oi 
unity  is  exemplified  everywhere  in  musical  compo- 
sition ; — as  in  the  necessity  of  ending  with  the 
triad  of  the  tonic  ;  of  resolving  all  discords,  even 
he  chord  of  the  seventh  ;  of  presenting  the  theme 
in  every  successive  movement  in  Imitation  or  in 
Fugue ;  and  the  like.  The  one  idea  to  be  ren- 
dered must  never  be  lost  from  view. 

§  279.  The  law  of  aesthetic  Number 
/Esthetic  Num.  requires  that:  the  cnanges  in  the  mood 

of  feeling  represented  be  few.  Three 
tones  are,  perhaps,  the  least  number  that  can  form 
a  theme ;  which,  on  the  other  hand,  should  not  ex- 
tend beyond  two  or  three  measures.  The  first 
allegro  in  Beethoven's  Symphony  in  C  minor  is 


312  LAWS    OF    fiEAUTY. 

from  a  theme  or  design  of  four  notes — three  eighth 
notes  on  G  and  a  half  note  on  E.  In  an  oratorio 
or  an  opera,  this  law  of  number  is  the  same  as  that 
applicable  to  dramatic  composition  generally. 

§  280.  The  Law  of  Contrast  has  in 
Contrast.  music  perhaps  a  wider  application  than 

in  any  other  art.  The  contrasts  in 
rhythm,  in  melody,  in  harmony,  in  force,  in  instru- 
ments both  in  number  and  kind,  with  their  manifold 
combinations,  are  so  various  as  to  allow  the  utmost 
latitude  for  diversification  in  expression.  The  prin- 
ciple requires  that  on  the  firmly  maintained  ground 
of  unity,  the  different  be  prominently  exhibited  as 
different. 

§  281.  The  Law  of  Proportion  is  as 
Proportion.  exact  in  music  as  in  architecture. 

The  like  parts  must  in  respect  to  time 
and  force  and  measures  bear  a  like  proportion  to 
the  whole. 

§  282.  The  Laws  of  Symmetry  and  Harmony, 
requiring  that  the  like  parts  should  be  similarly 
treated,  are  also  of  equal  force  in  music.  A  major 
and  a  minor  strain  bearing  the  same  relation  to  the 
whole,  should  vary  only  as  the  natures  of  these  two 
moods  require.  They  are  as  right  and  left  to  each 
other.  The  principle  is  the  same  as  applied  to  all 
like  parts  of  whatever  kind — to  the  parts  of  a 
measure,  to  the  parts  of  a  period  or  a  strain. 

§  283.  The  aesthetic  principles  deter- 
Moral  relations,  mined  by  the  relation  of  feeling  to  the 

moral  nature  have  a  close  and  also  an 
extensive  application  in  music.  The  moral  sympa- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  313 

thies  are  the  deepest  and  strongest  in  the  soul  of 
man.  The  most  moving  strains  are  those  that  re- 
ligion has  inspired.  Next  to  this,  love  of  country, 
of  political  freedom  and  independence,  has  most 
warmly  expressed  itself  in  music,  as  in  national 
songs  and  in  martial  airs.  The  music  of  the 
merely  social  character,  as  that  of  the  dance,  while 
lowest  of  the  three  great  departments  of  music,  yet 
obviously  bears  a  true  moral  aspect.  Richter  in 
his  Titan  has  not  overlooked  the  place  of  music  in 
this  moral  relation  : — "  Music  has  something  holy  ; 
unlike  the  other  arts,  it  cannot  paint  any  thing  but 
what  is  good."  So  we  should  anticipate  from  the 
very  nature  of  music  as  the  expression  of  form 
itself,  that  is  of  the  soul  as  impressed  and  shaped 
by  other  souls.  For  soul  is  essentially  and  charac- 
teristically moral ;  and  the  most  natural  and  hence 
the  freest  and  fullest  intercourse  of  soul  with  soul 
is  that  of  one  moral  nature  with  another.  It  is  in 
this  deep  insight  into  the  secret  abysses  of  our  ex- 
perience that  that  most  devoted  student  of  nature, 
Richter,  is  led  to  speak  of  the  personality  in  the 
beauty  and  sublimity  of  the  natural  world,  when  he 
represents  beautiful  nature  as  caressing  and  holding 
like  a  mother,  and  sublime  nature  as  standing  like 
a  father  in  the  distance. 

The  particular  requisitions  of  this  principle  are, 
first,  that  the  artist  in  music  seek  chiefly  to  repre- 
sent the  finest  feelings  of  his  being,  since  they  are 
the  deepest  and  strongest  and  most  quickly  find  en- 
trance into  the  hearts  of  others  ;  and,  secondly,  that 
he  seek  not  only  to  pour  out  his  own  feelings,  but 


314  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

see  also  that  his  utterances  shall  come  with  a  benign, 
a  truly  refining  and  cheering  influence  on  others. 
Music,  as  moral  in  its  source,  even  when  most 
purely  but  the  outflow  of  an  impassioned  soul 
moved  from  within,  cannot  sever  itself  from  its  lin- 
eage, and  must  at  least  in  this  outflow  have  some 
regard  to  the  sensibilities  on  which  the  utterances 
shall  fall. 

EXEMPLIFICATIONS     OF     THE     PRIN- 

History.  CIPLES     OF    FORM     IN     MUSIC      IN    THE 

HISTORY  OF  THE  ART. — §  284.  Music, 
although  earliest  of  origin  among  the  aesthetic 
arts,  has  been  longest  in  reaching  maturity. 
The  fact  is  a  striking  witness  to  the  nobility  of  the 
art ;  as  generally  we  observe  that  the  richest  per- 
fection is  conditioned  on  the  slowest  growth.  Soon 
after  the  original  creation  of  man,  in  the  earliest 

history  of  the  race,  we  read  of  Jubal 
Antiquity.  as  "the  father  of  all  such  as  handle 

the  harp  and  pipe."  Rhythm  and 
simple  melody  were  probably  the  limit  of  musical 
attainment  for  a  long  period.  Instruments  of  per- 
cussion are  in  use  among  savage  tribes  where  no 
other  department  of  musical  expression  is  known  ; 
and  are  found  everywhere  in  union  with  those  that 
give  distinctions  in  pitch,  and  thus  are  capable  of 
melody.  The  sacred  historian  aimed,  it  would 
seem,  to  attribute  to  Jubal  the  invention  of  melo- 
dious expression  by  means  of  instruments.  It  was 
a  stage  beyond  merely  rhythmical  skill ;  but  was 
undoubtedly  itself  subsequent  to  vocal  melody.  The 
native  love  of  rhythm  prompted  the  invention  of  a 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  315 

great  diversity  of  instruments  of  percussion.  The 
ancient  Egyptians  had  the  triangle,  the  kettle-drum, 
and  the  sistrum  or  timbrel.  The  Jews,  who  culti- 
vated music  to  the  highest  degree  in  their  religious 
life,  had  besides  these  the  cymbal  also.  The  early 
Chinese  used  gongs  and  plates  of  metal.  Bells, 
plates  of  glass,  and  strips  of  wood  even,  have  been 
used  in  later  times. 

Melody  was  cultivated  in  its  simpler  form  of 
succession  of  musical  sounds,  with  no  nice  dis- 
crimination probably  of  the  exact  relations  between 
the  different  degrees  of  pitch,  by  the  Egyptians  and 
the  Jews.  A  great  diversity  of  wind  and  stringed 
instruments  were  in  use  among  them. 

§  285.  The  Greeks  carried  the  art  to 
Greece.  a  higher  level.  Terpander,  nearly  700 

years  before  our  era,  wrote  melodies 
for  the  harp.  Euclid  reduced  musical  intervals  to 
mathematical  ratios.  The  Greeks  also  introduced 
the  chromatic  scale  and  distinguished  the  major 
and  minor  intervals  in  the  diatonic  scale.  They 
invented  even  an  enharmonic  scale  with  degrees  of 
only  quarter  tones.  But  there  is  no  evidence  of 
their  having  cultivated  harmony  to  any  extent. 
This  department  is  of  comparatively  modern  origin. 

£  286.  In  the  sixteenth  century  music 
Jtaiy.  was  cultivated  with  great  devotion  and 

success  in  Italy.  Oratorios,  or  musical 
representations  of  events,  with  divers  characters, 
but  without  dramatic  action  and  scenery,  originated 
in  this  century ;  and  towards  its  end  the  proper 
opera,  with  full  dramatic  representation,  was  mtro- 


310  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

duced.  Operatic  music  culminated  in  Italy  in 
Rossini  of  the  present  century. 

§  287.  The  German  art  was  rooted  in 
Germany.  the  Italian.  Its  great  originator  was 

Gluck,  1714-1787.  He  first  pro- 
pounded the  principles  that  operatic  music  must 
fasten  itself  on  a  truthful  narrative  or  historic 
action,  awakening  certain  determinate  moods  of 
feeling  ;  that  it  must  directly  express  these  feel- 
ings ;  and  that  the  instrumentation  must  be  aux- 
iliary to  the  vocal  representation.  After  Gluck 
followed  the  three  great  princes  in  musical  com- 
position, Haydn,  Mozart,  and  Beethoven — standing 
in  relation  to  modern  music  much  as  ^Eschylus, 
Sophocles,  and  Euripides  to  the  Grecian  drama. 
Besides  these  great  names,  Handel,  Weber,  and 
Mendelssohn  rank  in  the  highest  place  as  musical 
composers. 

§  288.  In  sympathy  with  the  progress 
France.  of  the  art  in  Italy  and  in  Germany, 

music  was  successfully  cultivated  in 
France,  whose  leading  composers  are  Auber, 

Meyerbeer,  and  Halevy,  and  also  in 
England.  England,  whose  most  eminent  names 

in  the  history  of  the  art  are  Purcell 
(1658-1665)  and  Dr.  Arne  (1710-1778). 


SPECIAL    LAWS. 


317 


CHAPTER   X. 

SPECIAL    LAWS — DISCOURSE,   POETRY. 

§  289.  Discourse,  as  it  was  the  first 
Antiquity  and  in  origin)  so  it  must  be  acknowledged 

to  be  the  first  in  rank  among  the 
aesthetic  arts.  The  physical  man  could  subsist 
indeed  without  discourse,  without  communicating 
to  another  mind,  while  he  could  not  subsist  without 
shelter  or  without  food.  But  the  primitive  man 
received  the  supply  of  these  physical  wants,  as  does 
the  infant  now,  from  a  truly  parental,  even  a  provi- 
dential care.  To  speak  was  his  own  first  proper 
act,  after  the  first  survey  and  contemplation  of  the 
new  world  around  him  and  of  himself  and  the  first 
trial  of  his  outer  limbs.  Then,  as  the  great  poet 
says,  "to  speak"  he  "tried  and  forthwith  spoke." 

§  290.  The  one  element  of  all  speech 
Word.  is  the  word.  The  word  is  the  revela- 

tion of  thought  in  sound.  It  is  accord- 
ingly the  type-form  of  all  beauty.  Its  matter  is 
sound — sound,  distinguished  from  noise,  in  imply- 
ing uniformity  of  successive  vibrations ;  vocal 
sound,  distinguished  from  sounds  by  other  instru- 
ments than  the  voice  ;  musical  sound,  inasmuch  as 
every  word  and  every  syllable  in  a  word  is  em- 
bodied in  a  sound  having  a  determinate  interval 
that  may  be  measured  by  the  degrees  in  musical 


LAWS    OF    BEAUfY. 

pitch.  Not  so  much  consequently  in  respect  to  the 
material  in  which  they  reveal  as  in  respect  to  the 
content — the  idea — which  they  reveal,  do  discourse 
and  music  differ.  Music  reveals  feeling  ;  discourse 
reveals  thought.  A  word  has  thought  for  its 
content. 

Moreover,  the  thought  that  makes  the  inner  con- 
tent of  the  word  is  properly  discursive  thought  as  it 
is  called.  That  is,  the  words  in  speech  are  to  be 
regarded  as  in  their  essence  forms  of  the  highest 
function  of  the  intelligence — the  judgment  or  com- 
parative faculty.  Hence  the  nature  of  the  word,  the 
forms  of  words,  .as  also  the  nature  of  language 
generally,  are  to  be  explained  and  understood  only 
from  the  nature  of  the  judgment.  Words  are  not 
properly  names  of  "percepts"  or  of  "representa- 
tions," or  of  the  relations  of  these  forms  of  the 
intelligence,  but  of  subjects  and  attributes  and  of 
their  relations.  They  are  properly  to  be  regarded 
as  the  embodiments  in  sound  of  thought  in  its 
strictest,  highest  import  —  of  the  discursive  in- 
telligence. 

§  291.  Discourse  had  its  origin  in  an 
Origin.  instinct  of  man's  rational  nature — in 

his  desire  to  communicate  to  another 
mind.  Originally,  therefore,  like  architecture  and 
landscape,  Discourse  proceeds  from  a  want,  and 
thus  becomes  subject  to  an  end  that  lies  beyond 
the  mere  expression  of  thought  in  sound.  It  is, 
thus,  like  those  two  arts,  a  dependent  art.  But  the 
progress  of  human  culture  has,  in  the  higher  atten- 
tion given  to  discourse,  effected  a  familiar  and  well- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  319 

received  separation  between  the  two 
p0"i?ry  and    departments  of  the  art ;  and  has  named 
the  one  which  is  dependent  Oratory^ 
and  the  other  which  is  free  Poetry. 

We  have  thus  given  us  the  ready  distinction 
between  these  two  great  departments  of  Discourse. 
Oratory  expresses  idea  with  reference  to  a  foreign 
end  which  governs  throughout  in  the  construction 
of  all  oratorical  discourse.  This  foreign  end  is  the 
production  of  an  effect  on  another  mind — to  inform, 
to  convince,  to  excite,  or  to  persuade.  The  special 
law  of  oratory  is  accordingly  this:  that  it  ever 
keep  this  designed  effect  in  another  mind  in  view, 
and  move  with  undeviating  steadiness  towards  it. 
History,  philosophical  literature,  and  other  prose 
discourse  generally,  is  but  a  derivative  from  proper 
oratory  and  a  modification  of  it.  Oratory  is  the 
subject-matter  of  Rhetoric. 

While  Oratory  represents  for  the  sake  of  effect 
on  another  mind  and  is  dependent,  Poetry,  on  the 
other  hand,  represents  for  the  sake  of  the  form 
itself,  and  is  free. 

The  special  laws  of  aesthetics,  as  applied  to  dis- 
course, distribute  themselves,  as  in  architecture  and 
landscape,  into  the  two  departments  thus  indicated 
as  applied  to  oratory  as  dependent,  and  to  poetry  as 
free.  Both  are  properly  to  be  regarded  as  aesthetic 
arts ;  for  oratory  as  poetry  is  revelation  of  idea  in 
matter,  and  must  ever  proceed  cesthetically. 

Inasmuch  as  oratory  is  so  familiarly  expounded 
as  to  its  nature,  its  forms,  its  processes,  its  laws, 
generally  in  rhetorical  treatises,  it  is  unnecessary 


32O  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

to  consider  it  here  in  formal  detail.  For  this  more 
detailed  and  formal  exposition  the  author  refers  to 
his  Art  of  Discourse  as  exhibiting  its  principles  in 
general  accordance  with  those  of  the  present  treatise. 
Incidentally,  however,  its  more  prominent  aesthetic 
aspects  will  be  noticed  in  the  treatment  of  poetry. 

Dismissing  Oratory  as  the  dependent  department 
of  discourse,  we  have  then  to  consider  only  the  free 
art  of  Poetry,  in  which  aesthetic  form  is  the  govern- 
ing law. 

§  292.  I.  LAW  OF  IDEA  IN  POETRY. — The 
proper  idea  to  be  revealed  in  poetic  art  is  thought, 
as  in  music  the  idea  is  feeling.  The  realm  of 
poetic  idea  is  as  wide,  consequently,  as  the  realm 
of  thought.  Themes,  subjects  in  poetic  compo- 
sition, poetic  ideals,  are  as  manifold  and  diverse  as 
the  forms  of  thought  itself.  There  are  thoughts 
which  relatively,  indeed,  we  characterize  as  poetic 
in  distinction  from  others  which  are  unpoetic  ;  but 
this  is  only  a  distinction  in  degree  not  in  kind. 
There  are  "thoughts  that  voluntary  move  har- 
monious numbers  ; "  they  are  of  a  nature  which  is 
of  a  kin  to  the  spirit  of  art  and  at  once  wake  and 
warm  it  to  creative  life.  They  are  emphatically 
and  by  preeminence  poetic  subjects.  There  are 
thoughts  which  are  farthest  removed  from  the 
capacity  and  from  the  faculty  of  poetic  form  ;  they 
are  of  the  purest,  baldest  forms  of  the  intelligent 
spirit ;  mere  abstractions  from  concrete  realities  ; 
bare  relations  between  ideas ;  they  are  emphat- 
ically, by  preeminence,  unpoetic.  They  are  so, 
however,  only  relatively  and  in  comparison  with 


SPECIAL   LAWS.  321 

others  which  are  more  clearly  allied  to  aesthetic 
form- 

§  293.  Thoughts,  regarded  as  subjects 
Subjects.  for  poetry,  are  distributed  into  three 

great  departments,  and  by  this  dis- 
tribution give  rise  to  the  three  great  departments 

of  poetic  composition.  Those  of  the 
i.  ideas  oftmth.  first  class  are  ideas  of  truth.  Here, 

not  feeling,  not  action,  but  simply 
what  is  true,  makes  up  the  content  of  the  poet's 

thought.  It  is  the  governing  idea  in 
Didactic  poetry,  the  field  of  Didactic  Poetry,  embracing 

in  its  divers  modifications  the  varieties 
of  Descriptive,  Pastoral,  Satirical  poetry. 

§  294.  The  second  class  consists  of 
a.  ideas  of  feeling,  ideas  of  feeling,  in  which  the  thought 

embraces  a  form  of  the  sensibility,  and 
is  characterized  as  a  sentiment.  This  kind  of 
poetic  idea  has  given  rise  to  the  department  of 

poetry  denominated  Elegiac.  It  em- 
Eiegiac.  braces  the  two  varieties :  the  Lyric> 

adapted  to  music,  comprising  the  Ode 
and  the  Song,  as  well  as  the  Sacred  Lyric ;  and  the 
proper  Elegiac. 

§  295.  The  third  class  consists  of  ideas 
ideas  of  action.  of  action,  in  which  the  thought  em- 
braces some  activity  of  spirit  either 
spontaneous  or  voluntary.  This  kind  of  poetic 

idea  has  originated  the  department  of 

Epic   Poetry,  which  includes  the  two 

varieties  of  the  proper  Epic  in  which 
the  poet  himself  is  the  speaker  and  the  Dramatic 


322  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

in  which  the  actor  himself  is  represented  as  the 
speaker.  Under  these  grand  divisions  are  still 
other  subdivisions.  The  Epic  comprises  the  higher 
Epic — the  Epic  by  preeminence — and  also  the 
poetic  Tale.  It  embraces  also  the  Heroic,  a  serious 
Epic,  and  the  Burlesque  or  Mock-Heroic.  Dra- 
matic Poetry,  in  the  same  way,  includes  the  Tragic, 
which  represents  the  higher  and  serious  life,  and 
Comic  which  represents  the  playful  and  diverting 
in  common  life. 

§  206.   In  whatever  province  of  idea 

Poetic  idea    must     °  f 

be  treated  as  one    the  DOCt    may     find    the  SUblCCt    of  hlS 

ot  thought.  .  J  * 

representation,  the  law  of  idea  in  his 
great  art  ever  exacts  of  him,  in  order  to  success, 
that  he  treat  his  subject  as  essentially  an  idea  of 
thought.  His  subject  must  be  handled  throughout 
as  of  the  nature  of  thought,  as  having  the  proper 
attributes  of  thought,  as  controlled  by  the  proper 
laws  of  thought.  If  his  theme  be  a  sentiment  or 
an  act  of  heroism,  his  first  duty  is  to  bring  it  into 
his  intelligence,  to  shape  it  under  the  laws  of  his 
thinking  nature.  His  conception  of  it  must  be 
clear  and  distinct ;  it  must  be  clearly  defined  and 
separated  from  all  other  conceptions  ;  it  must  be 
also  clearly  distinguished  in  respect  to  all  its  con- 
stituent parts.  Dimness  of  vision,  vagueness,  con- 
fusion of  idea,  are  fatal  to  poetic  creation. 

Skill  in  poetry  does  not  presuppose  necessarily 
logical  any  more  than  grammatical  proficiency. 
But  a  poet  may  as  well  hope  to  succeed  who  igno- 
rantly  tramples  on  all  the  principles  of  grammar,  as 
one  who  tramples  on  all  the  principles  of  intelli^ 


SPECIAL   LAWS.  323 

gence.  Poetry  may  appear  in  the  infancy  of  knowl- 
edge ;  a  true  poet  may  break  in  upon  the  world 
from  other  spheres  than  those  of  the  university  or 
other  halls  of  learning.  But  he  must  know  his 
theme  however  his  knowing  power  may  have  been 
developed.  A  Purcell  may  have  composed  anthems 
and  a  Mozart  well  harmonized  melodies  in  their 
early  boyhood  and  before  they  had  mastered  the 
most  elementary  technics  of  musical  composition  ; 
but  they  had  feeling  and  they  had  skill  to  embody 
this  feeling  in  sounds  that  were  in  accordance  with 
musical  principles,  as  truly  if  not  as  perfectly  as  in 
the  days  of  their  maturer  development  and  training. 
However  he  came  by  it,  whether  by  school-disci- 
pline, by  private  tuition,  by  solitary  contemplation 
and  reflection,  every  true  poet  must  know  his  theme 
and  be  able  to  handle  it  in  accordance  with  its  own 
nature ;  that  is,  in  accordance  with  the  principles 
of  human  intelligence  or  thought.  The  more  per- 
fect his  conception  of  his  theme,  the  more  definite 
his  apprehension  of  it,  the  more  full  and  rich  his 
discriminations  of  its  contents,  the  more  perfect 
and  more  replete  with  poetic  beauty  will  be  his 
product 

The  grand  law  of  idea  in  poetry  is  that  its  sub- 
ject   being   thought    must    be    apprehended    and 
treated   as  thought,    in  clearness   and   fullness  of 
light,  in  accuracy  and  affluence  of  discrimination. 
§  297.   II.  THE  LAW  OF  MATERIAL  IN 
Word-sounds.        POETRY. — Poetry,  we  have  seen,  embod- 
ies  in  word  as  its    revealing  matter; 
and  word  is  thought  embodied  in  sound.     The  out- 


324  LAWS    OF    BKAUTV. 

ward  body  of  poetic  expression  is  accordingly 
sound  as  modified  in  word.  The  law  of  material 
in  poetry  is  founded  in  the  doctrine  of  word-sounds 
in  their  essential  properties  and  their  relations. 

As  already  observed  all  speech  is  musical,  inas- 
much as  every  syllable  in  a  word  in  its  utterance 
passes  through  a  determinate  interval  on  the  musi- 
cal scale, — a  semi-tone,  a  tone,  a  third,  a  fifth,  or 
an  octave,  or  a  combination  of  these  intervals — 
and  all  the  skips  in  pitch,  as  the  voice  passes  from 
word  to  word,  are  also  through  like  determinate  in- 
tervals. All  thought  expresses  itself  in  spoken 
language  thus  in  strictest  conformity  to  the  princi- 
ples of  music  and  all  discourse  must  proceed  in  con- 
scious or  unconscious  obedience  to  their  dictates. 
It  is  the  proper  function  of  the  art  of  Elocution  to 
enumerate  and  describe  these  musical  principles  in 
their  application  to  discourse  ;  and  poetic  discourse 
must  observe  them,  and  avail  itself  of  them  to  per* 
feet  its  embodiments. 

§  298.  But  there  are  special  modifica- 
Prosody.  tions  of  these  elocutionary  principles 

as  applied  to  poetic  expression.  Thus 
they  furnish  the  principle  subject  matter  of  Pros- 
ody in  its  two  leading  departments  of  Assonance 
lying  in  the  quality  of  the  sound,  and  Rhythm 
lying  in  the  stress  of  the  sound. 

§  299.  As  Assonance  in  poetry  may  be 
™dTera£tial  at  the  beginning  of  a  recurring  form 

of  expression  or  at  the  end,  we  have 
the  two  varieties  ot  (i)  initial  assonance  or  Alliter- 
ation :  and  (2)  terminal  assonance  or  Rhyme. 


SPECIAL   LAWS  325 

Alliteration  is  a  common  element  of 
°nrcen~    poetical  expression.      It  occurs  in  suc- 
cessive words  in  the  same  sentence ; 

or  at  the  beginning  of  successive  verses  or  turns 

of  expression. 

Rhyme  or  terminal  assonance  appears 

S'S^S?"    at  the  ends  of  verses  or  turns  of  ex- 
pression.    It  is  perfect  when  like  vowel 

sounds  in  the  last  accented  syllables  are  followed 

by  like  and  preceded  by  unlike  alphabetic  sounds. 

It  is  distinguished  also  as  single,  double,  or  triple  ; 

and  as  successive,  alternate,  or  interrupted. 

§  300.  Rhythm  is  founded  immediately 

Rhythm  founded      3   °  * 

on  accent   and    on  accent,  more  remotely  on  stress  of 

quantity. 

sound  combined  or  not  with  time. 
Classic  poetry  distinguished  these  two  remote  ele- 
ments of  rhythm  ;  modern  poetry  founds  rhythm  on 
the  impressive  force  of  articulate  sound,  whether 
consisting  of  mere  accent  or  of  accent  combined 
with  syllabic  quantity  or  time.  Rhythm  consists  of 
measures  or  of  a  recurring  uniformity  of  one 
accented  combined  with  one  or  more  unaccented 
syllables.  The  recurrence  of  a  number  of  similarly 
constituted  measures  forms  a  poetic  verse,  which 
may  consist  of  one  measure — a  manometer;  or 
of  two,  or  a  dimeter ;  of  three,  a  trimeter ;  of  four, 
a  tetrameter ;  of  five,  a  pentameter ;  of  six,  a 
hexameter,  etc.  According  as  the  combinations  of 
the  one  accented  with  the  unaccented  syllables 

vary,  we  have  different  varieties  of 
Feet  poetic  measures  called  poetic  feet. 

Thus  we  have  the  accented   syllable 


326  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

preceding  one  unaccented,  or  the  Trochee ;  or  pre- 
ceding two  unaccented,  or  the  Dactyl ;  or  following 
one  unaccented,  or  the  Iambus  ;  or  two  unaccented, 
or  the  Anapcst ;  or  occurring  between  the  two  unac- 
cented syllables,  or  the  Amphibrach  ;  or  combined 
with  three  unaccented  syllables,  or  the  Peon,  which 
may  be  of  four  forms,  according  to  the  relative  posi- 
tion of  the  accented  to  the  unaccented  syllables. 
Other  varieties  also  occur.  Greek  invention  espe- 
cially was  affluent  in  the  distinctions  of  poetic  feet. 
It  should  be  carefully  observed  that  these  so 
called  poetic  feet  occur  as  truly  in  prose  as  in  poetic 
discourse.  And  in  this  fact  we  recognize  a  proper 
aesthetic  characteristic  in  all  good  prose  composi- 
tion There  is  a  rhetorical  rhythm  generally  as 
well  as  a  poetical  rhythm.  It  characterizes  the 
style  of  Milton,  of  Addison,  of  Macaulay,  of  Irving, 
of  every  superior  prose  writer,  of  every  superior 
orator.  The  distinction  between  rhetorical  and 
poetical  rhythm  is  exactly  analogous  to  the  distinc- 
tion between  mere  noise  and  voice  ;  to  the  distinc- 
tion also  between  a  vocal  and  a  musical  sound. 
Voice,  as  we  have  seen,  differs  from  mere  noise, 
inasmuch  as  it  consists  of  a  continuous  uniformity 
of  vibrations  ;  a  musical  sound  from  a  mere  vocal 
sound  in  its  continuous  uniformity  of  pitch  ;  a  poet- 
ical from  rhetorical  rhythm  in  its  continuous  uni- 
formity of  feet. 

§  301.  On  these  elocutionary  principles 
Melody.  is  founded  also  the  doctrine  of  melody 

in  discourse.     Rhetorical  melody  thus, 
respects  the  successions  of  pitch  which  must  be 


SPECIAL    LAWS. 

given  in  the  proper  pronunciation  of  discourse.  To 
show  the  relations  of  the  thought  as  well  as  the 
intensity  of  feeling  that  enters  into  it,  there  must  be 
variations  of  vocal  pitch  by  which  the  parts  of  a 
sentence,  or  of  a  paragraph,  or  of  a  whole  discourse, 
are  shown  in  their  relations  to  one  another.  A 
good  style  is  melodious  as  well  as  rhythmical. 

§  302.  Still  further  these  elementary 
Harmony.  principles  determine  the  doctrine  of 

harmony  in  discourse,  which,  like  asso- 
nance in  particular  words,  is  founded  on  the  quality 
of  sounds.  But  it  is  this  assonance  in  successive 
sentences  or  parts  of  sentences  which  rhetorical 
harmony  more  immediately  regards.  Poetical  mel- 
ody and  poetical  harmony  are  grounded  in  this  gen- 
eral rhetorical  melody  and  harmony,  which,  with 
rhythm,  constitute  the  oral  properties  of  style  in 
the  general  art  of  discourse. 

§  303.  But  a  word  is  more  than  sound 
words  as  Sym-  however  modified ;  it  is  more  than 

thought,  however  diversified  in  its 
nature  and  relations  ;  as  material  in  poetry,  it  is 
thought  formed  in  sound.  The  exposition  given  of 
the  nature  of  beauty,  of  aesthetic  form,  will  have 
prepared  for  the  doctrine  that  the  word  is  medium 
of  communication  between  communicating  minds. 
As  human  minds  can  communicate  only  through 
the  outward  sense,  words  are  sounds  addressing  the 
sense  of  hearing  ;  but  they  are  mediums  of  thought 
shaped  in  them  in  such  way  that  the  speaker  and 
the  hearer  alike  use  and  receive  them.  Words  are 
consequently  in  their  origin  ever  sounds  associated, 


328  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

identified  in  some  way  with  the  thought  to  be  com- 
municated in  the  minds  of  both  speaker  and  hearer, 
and  so  expressive  of  that  thought.  They  are  thus 
associated  or  identified  in  the  minds  of  both  through 
the  common  nature  so  far  of  the  sensible  universe 
around  us  and  of  our  spirits  within  us.  Words 
are  thus  originally  symbols  ;  they  express  thought 
through  forms  of  sense.  In  this  lies 
Rhetorical  in,-  the  foun(jation  of  what  is  called  im- 
agery in  discourse.  In  all  rhetorical 
imagery,  which  forms  so  large  an  element  in  all  dis- 
course, whether  prose  or  verse,  we  have  a  kind  of 
aesthetic  form.  In  the  use  of  it  the  active  imagina- 
tion of  the  speaker  or  writer  shapes  his  idea  in  the 
material  taken  from  the  outward  world — in  the 
objects  or  scenes  that  address  the  outward  eye,  or 
the  ear,  or  the  other  senses  of  the  mind  he  addresses 
as  well  as  of  himself,  and  so  communicates  to  the 
passive  imagination  of  his  hearer  or  reader.  Such 
is  the  primitive  nature  and  origin  of  all  language  ; 
and  however  spiritualized  oj  abstract  it  may  be- 
come, or  however  unconscious  or  ignorant  of  this 
the  speaker  or  writer  may  be  in  his  use  of  it,  the 
laws  which  this,  its  essential  nature,  imposes  upon 
it,  can  never  be  trampled  on  without  suicidal  effect 
on  style,  while  the  fuller  acquaintance  with  them  is 
necessary  to  the  highest  skill  in  all  discourse. 

There  is  of  course  a  rhetorical  as  well  as  poetical 
Imagery  ;  and  the  more  detailed  and  formal  pre- 
sentation of  it  belongs  more  properly  to  the  general 
art  of  discourse  than  to  the  special  province  of 
poetry. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  329 

§  304.  III.  LAW  OF  FORM  IN  POETRY. — The 
principles  which  regulate  the  embodiment  of 
thought  in  language,  whether  for  some  foreign  end 
as  in  prose  or  for  the  sake  of  the  form  itself  as  in 
poetry,  have  a  twofold  outlook.  They  regard,  on 
the  one  hand,  the  word-side,  and  on  the  other  hand 
the  idea-side  of  the  process. 

i.  The  poet  must  regard  the  nature  of 

Use  of  Language        ,  ,   .  ......  ,    .  . 

as  oral  and  as  the  word  in  which  he  is  to  reveal  his 
idea.  This  we  have  discovered  to 
have  also  a  double  element,  the  sound  or  oral  ele- 
ment and  the  symbol  element  or  imagery.  The 
diverse  nature  of  the  idea  to  be  embodied  finds  a 
diverse  adaptation  in  the  diversity  of  the  several 
oral  properties  of  discourse.  Even  the  lowest  of 
these,  assonance  both  initial  or  alliteration,  and 
terminal  or  rhyme,  admit  a  distinct  poetical  ex- 
pression. The  nature  of  the  idea  sometimes  bids 
to  the  use  of  alliteration,  sometimes  shuns  it ;  some- 
times the  current  of  poetic  thought  leads  to  the  use 
of  rhyme,  sometimes  turns  from  it.  The  calmer 
and  more  even  moods  of  poetry  invite  the  bonds  of 
alliteration  and  rhyme ;  the  more  impetuous  and 
free  seek  a  looser  utterance.  It  is  incumbent  on 
him  who  would  master  all  the  means  of  poetic 
expression,  so  to  possess  himself  of  the  true  expres- 
sion of  these  properties  and  bring  them  into  such 
ready  control  that  he  shall  not  only  sagaciously 
use  or  pass  them  as  shall  be  needful,  but  shall, 
without  the  hampering  effect  of  a  conscious  labor 
for  them,  have  them  true  helpers  to  his  poetic 
effort,  just  as  one  finds  his  familiar  vernacular 


33O  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

speech  helpful,  but  a  strange  dialect  in  which  he 
has  to  labor  to  call  up  words  repressing  to  his 
thought. 

§  305.  The  element  of  melody  is  a 
Use  of  Melody.  more  vital  one  to  the  poet's  success. 

It  has  a  far  more  diversified  expression 
than  even  rhyme.  In  rhymed  poetry,  poetic  melody 
has  but  a  limited  range,  inasmuch  as  the  necessities 
of  the  rhyme  at  the  end  of  each  verse  lead  at  once 
to  a  more  simple,  sententious  structure,  while 
melody  appears  more  in  the  complex  sentence. 
Poetic  thought,  in  its  diversified  shapes  and  hues, 
goes  out  in  preference  sometimes  in  a  simpler, 
sometimes  in  a  more  multiplex  melody ;  sometimes 
in  one  more  abrupt,  sometimes  in  one  more  gentle 
and  flowing.  The  ear  needs  to  be  trained  to  these 
diversities  of  melody  that  the  idea  may  obtain  its 
fittest  embodiment.  Certainly  the  essential  prin- 
ciples of  melody  in  discourse  cannot  be  violated, 
to  which  there  must  be  great  liability  in  one  who 
ignores  their  importance,  without  detriment  to 
poetic  expression.  Faults  in  melody  are  not  infre- 
quent even  in  our  best  poets.  The  following 
passage  from  Cowper,  for  instance,  cannot  be  pro- 
nounced so  as  properly  to  exhibit  through  the  voice 
the  relations  of  the  thought  with  satisfaction  to  the 
ear: 

"  As  one,  who,  long  detained  on  foreign  shores, 
Pants  to  return,  and  when  he  sees  afar 
His  country's  weather-bleached  and  battered  rocks 
From  the  green  wave  emerging,  darts  an  eye 
Radiant  with  joy  toward  the  happy  land ; 
So  I  with  animated  hopes  behold, 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  331 

And  many  an  aching  wish,  your  beamy  fires, 
That  show  like  beacons  in  the  blue  abyss, 
Ordained  to  guide  the  embodied  spirit  home 
From  toilsome  life  to  never  ending  rest" 

§  306.  The  oral  property  of  harmony, 
Use  of  Harmony,  which  requires  that  the  expression  suit 

itself  to  the  particular  quality  of  the 
sounds  in  vocal  speech,  is  one  which  the  poet  must 
make  serviceable  to  his  aim  while  seeking  the  fittest 
embodiment  of  his  idea.  Let  one  compare  the 
passages  between  Gabriel  and  Satan  in  the  fourth 
book  of  Milton's  Paradise  Lost  with  Adam  and 
Eve's  Morning  Hymn  in  the  fifth  book,  and  he  will 
find  an  admirable  exemplification  of  the  happy 
observance  of  poetic  harmony — the  rough,  harsh, 
impetuous  force  in  the  one,  the  calm,  gentle,  reverent 
love  in  the  other,  expressed  in  the  very  quality  of 
the  word-sounds  in  the  two  respectively. 

§  307.  The  word,  as  we  have  noticed,  is 
Use  of  imagery,  originally  and  essentially  a  symbol,  an 

image  ;  and  from  this  its  primitive  na- 
ture springs  that  great  element  of  Imagery  in  dis- 
course. In  Poetry,  imagery  characterizes  both  the 
entire  cast  of  the  poem,  the  whole  method  or  con- 
duct of  the  work,  and  also  the  more  particular  elab- 
oration of  the  details,  of  the  characters,  objects, 
scenes,  truths,  which  make  up  the  body  of  the 
poem.  The  entire  poem  may  be  formed  in  proper 

imagery.  We  have  in  this  case  the 
Allegory.  Allegory.  The  Allegory  is  of  divers 

varieties,  distinguished  in  reference  to 
the  particular  kind  of  imagery  employed.  In 
Spenser's  Faery  Queene,  thus,  we  have  an  exempli- 


332  LAWS    OF  .BEAUTY. 

fication  of  proper  epic  allegory,  in  which  the  perfect 
heroic  character  in  its  several  constituent  virtues  is 
imaged  in  the  achievements  and  experiences  of 
chivalrous  life.  In  the  following  little  poem  of 
Coleridge  on  "Time  —  Real  and  Imaginary,"  is  an 
exemplification  of  another  widely  different  variety : 

"  On  the  wide  level  of  a  mountain's  head, 
I  know  not  where,  but  'twas  some  faery  place, 
Their  pinions,  ostrich  like,  for  sails  outspread, 
Two  lovely  children  run  an  endless  race, 

A  sister  and  a  brother. 

This  far  outstript  the  other  ; 
Yet  ever  runs  she  with  reverted  face, 
And  looks  and  listens  for  the  boy  behind  : 

For  he,  alas  !  is  blind. 

O'er  rough  and  smooth  with  even  step  he  passed, 
And  knows  not  whether  he  be  first  or  last." 

Of  the  imagery  which  appears  in  the  details  of  a 
poem,  the  particular  ideas  which  make  up  its  body, 
general  exemplifications  abound  everywhere  in 
poetry.  It  is  of  the  essential  nature  of  poetry  that 
it  utters  idea  in  image  or  form.  It  casts  its  chief 
end  and  design  in  imagery  ;  and  as  well  shapes  all 
its  particular  utterances  in  symbol.  In  the  follow- 
ing verses  from  Wordsworth's  "Sunset"  this  im- 
agery nature  sparkles  throughout : 

"  The  leaves  tha-t  whisper  in  delightful  talk, 
The  truant  air,  with  its  own  self  at  play, 
The  clouds  that  swim  in  azure,  loving  heaven 
And  loving  earth,  and  lingering  between  each, 
Loth  to  quit  either  ;  are  not  all  alive 
With  one  pure,  unalloyed,  consummate  joy  ?  " 

§  308.     2.  The  poet  must  regard  the 

Use  of  idea.          idea  side  of  his  process  and  conform  it 

ever  to   its    own   proper  nature   and 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  333 

relationships.  The  idea  in  poetry,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  thought ;  but  thought  either  as  unmodified — 
mere  fact  or  truth — or  as  modified  by  feeling  or 
purpose.  The  intellectual  principles 
SofUbeaue!T  of  art,  founded  in  the  intelligence  or 
faculty  of  thought,  have  a  readier  ap- 
plication here,  perhaps,  than  elsewhere  in  art 

The  idea  of  a  poem  must  be  one.  If  it  be  an 
event,  an  action,  it  must  be  apprehended  as  a  single 
event,  as  a  single  action.  The  general  unity  of  an 
epic  poem  lies  here,  as  also  does  that  of  a  tragedy 
or  a  comedy.  The  further  limitations  which  critics, 
particularly  classic  writers  and  some  modern  Euro- 
pean schools,  have  prescribed  to  this  broader  unity, 
the  best  and  highest  poetry  of  the  later  times  has 
wisely  disregarded.  The  unities  of  time  and  place, 
so  called,  which  the  ancients  so  sacredly  observed, 
can  be  enforced  so  far  only  as  they  enter  into  the 
unity  of  the  general  idea  of  the  poem.  Shakespeare, 
in  the  freedom  rightly  belonging  to  his  art,  trans- 
ports us  from  place  to  place,  from  country  to 
country,  from  year  to  year,  without  offending 
against  our  demands  for  such  a  unity  as  will  bring 
his  action  within  the  grasp  of  our  intelligence. 
The  poetry  of  sentiment  is  more  liable,  perhaps,  to 
looseness.  The  true  principle  of  unity  here  lies  in 
the  oneness  of  the  mood  of  feeling  which  comes  in 
to  modify  the  thought.  All  diversity  that  can  thus 
concur  in  any  one  condition  of  human  feeling  is 
within  the  allowance  of  the  law  of  unity. 

Of  the  other  aesthetic  principles  founded  in  the 
intelligence  in  their  application  to  poetry,  it  is 


334  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

unnecessary  to  speak.  They  are  all  indispensable 
here.  Of  the  principle  of  contrast  the  importance 
is  well  exhibited  in  a  remark  of  Wordsworth : 
"  Similitude  in  dissimilitude,"  he  somewhere  says, 
"is  the  source  of  pleasure  in  poetry."  The  remark 
is  but  partially  true,  indeed,  for  this  is  but  one 
of  divers  constituents  of  poetic  beauty ;  but  it 
shows  how  high  it  stood  in  the  estimation  of  one 
who  gave  to  the  culture  of  poetry  a  life  of  thought- 
ful study  and  of  prolific  production. 

§  309.  All  true  art,  we  have  every- 
E motive  eie-  where  discovered,  is  but  the  work  of 

the  aesthetic  imagination.  The  truth 
gives  law  to  all  poetic  work,  that  it  must  proceed 
throughout  in  conformity  with  the  nature  of  feeling — 
of  the  sensibility  or  the  imagination  both  active  and 
passive.  Another  remark  of  Wordsworth's,  alike 
partial  as  the  one  just  referred  to,  yet  alike  impor- 
tant, that  "poetry  is  the  spontaneous  overflow  of 
powerful  feelings,"  illustrates  the  force  and  authority 
of  this  principle.  The  Apostle  Paul,  as  before 
cited,  enumerates,  with  a  profounder  insight  and 
greater  philosophical  exactness  and  completeness, 
the  comprehensive  features  of  the  religious  spirit 
which  are  identical  with  those  of  the  artistic  spirit — 
"power,  love,  and  a  sound  mind."  The  ground 
of  these  requisitions,  that  all  art  must  move  in  con- 
formity with  the  nature  of  our  active,  feeling,  and 
intelligent  nature,  has  been  sufficiently  set  forth  in 
another  place. 

EXEMPLIFICATION   OF   THE  LAWS   OF 

Hebrew  poetry.        POETRY  IN    HlSTORY. §3IO.     Hebrew 

literature  preserves  to  us  the  earliest 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  335 

productions  of  the  poetic  spirit.  The  song  of 
Lamech  in  the  fourth  chapter  of  Genesis  —  the 
"sword-song"  as  Herder  styles  it — is  the  most 

ancient  on  record.  It  is  essentially 
Lyric.  Lyric,  and  so  prefigures  the  general 

cast  of  Hebrew  poetry.  In  this  de- 
partment no  nation  has  surpassed  the  Hebrews. 
The  songs  of  Moses,  recorded  in  Exodus  and  in 
Deuteronomy,  of  Deborah  in  Judges,  and  of  David 
in  the  Psalms,  are  of  the  highest  order  of  lyric 
excellence.  In  the  Prophets,  also,  here  and  there, 
are  scattered  lyric  strains  that,  like  those  mentioned, 
still  command  the  wonder  and  delight  of  the  world. 
Nowhere  has  the  lyric  spirit  uttered  itself  in  greater 
majesty,  boldness,  purity,  in  higher  sublimity  or 
sweeter  beauty.  The  life  of  the  Hebrew  was  pre- 
eminently religious — a  life  of  immediate  dependence 
on  the  God  of  gods,  in  immediate  communion  with 
the  Lord  Jehovah,  whom  it  reverently  yet  boldly 
recognized  as  the  almighty  Sovereign  who  "infiab- 
ited 'the praises  of  Israel."  With  comparative  meager- 
ness  of  outward  embodiment  in  word-sounds  and 
verse-forms — in  assonance  and  rhythm — it  was  rich 
in  the  interior  elements  of  idea  which  was  diversi- 
fied in  manifold  ways,  and  shaped  in  highest  con- 
formity to  the  principles  of  unity,  contrast,  and  the 
other  aesthetic  principles  founded  in  the  intelligence, 
and  also  breathed  the  most  passionate  and  purest 
moral  and  religious  sentiment.  With  no  regular 
rhyme  or  rhythm,  there  was  alliteration,  word-play 
founded  on  the  sound  of  the  word,  and  a  true 
rhythmical  choice  and  arrangement  of  words  in 


336  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

respect  to  their  accentuation.  Parallelism  of  divers 
varieties  is  a  characteristic  of  Hebrew  poetry,  deter- 
mining a  uniformity  or  regular  recurrence  of  verse- 
form  in  reference  both  to  the  thought  and  the 
diction.  In  this  particular  of  correspondence 
between  the  idea  and  the  word-material,  of  proper 
embodiment,  Hebrew  lyric  is  unsurpassed.  All 
the  moods  of  poetic  feeling  that  can  appear  in  lyric 
are  exemplified  in  high  perfection.  The  imagery 
is  equally  fit  and  expressive,  while  most  natural  and 
chaste.  The  twenty-third  psalm  breathes  in  the 
most  charming  numbers,  and  the  most  engaging 
images,  the  deep  unruffled  peace  of  a  soul  reposing 
its  trust  in  God.  The  tenderest  grief  and  sorrow 
find  the  most  touching  utterance  in  many  dirges 
and  songs  of  mourning  and  wo.  The  lament  of 
David  over  Jonathan,  the  songs  that  bewail  nation- 
al disasters,  of  which  the  seventy-third  and  one 
hundred  and  thirty-seventh  psalms  are  instances, 
the  penitential  hymns,  as  the  fifty-first  psalm,  go 
down  to  the  bottom  of  human  grief.  The  songs 
of  praise,  the  anthems  of  victory  and  triumph,  the 
strains  of  exulting  hope  and  confidence,  the  fervent 
prayers  for  help  and  comfort  and  blessing — all  the 
poetic  utterances  of  joy  and  hope  and  desire  are 
exemplified  in  this  wonderfully  rich  collection  of 
lyric  poetry.  The  allegory  as  well  as  the  imagery 
of  thought  generally  is  employed  with  great  poetic 
skill,  as  in  the  "proverb  against  the  king  of  Baby- 
lon," in  the  fourteenth  chapter  of  Isaiah. 

The  department  of  Didactic  Poetry 
Didactic  Poetry,  was  also  cultivated  to  great  perfection 

among  the  Hebrews.     The  Proverbs  of 


SPECIAL   LAWS.  337 

Solomon  are  a  good  exemplification  of  this  kind  of 
poetry  conveying  moral  instruction  in  brief,  pithy, 
poetically  turned  sentences,  which  have  given  the 
name  of  gnomic  to  this  variety  of  poetry.  The 
book  of  Job  is  another  example,  designed  to  treat 
the  great  moral  lesson  of  the  unfathomable  wisdom 
and  the  righteous  sovereignty  of  God  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  human  affairs.  Probably  the 
earliest  extended  poem,  it  is  one  of  the  richest, 
and  loftiest,  and  purest  in  idea,  in  imagery,  and 
also  in  diction. 

Of  the  Epic  and  the  Dramatic  there  are  no  clear 
instances  in  Hebrew  literature.  Some  critics, 
however,  have  thought  they  have  discovered  a 
truly  dramatic  structure  in  the  Song  of  Solomon. 

§  311.  In  the  Hindoo  Literature,  the 
Hindoo  Poetry.  Lyric  department  received  the  earliest 

development.  Of  the  four  Vedas,  the 
most  ancient  collections  of  Hindoo  literature,  the 
principal  one,  the  Rig  Veda,  is  made  up  of  relig- 
ious lyrics,  of  which  there  are  over  one  thousand  in 
number.  Their  date  is  uncertain,  but  goes  back  over 
a  thousand  years  before  the  Christian  era.  They 
are  metrical  and  broken  into  verses.  The  later 
Hindoo  lyric  is  pastoral  and  erotic  in  idea. 

Epic  poetry  is  represented  in  the  Ramayana,  the 
subject  of  which  is  the  descent  of  Vishnu  to  avert 
the  destruction  of  the  world  by  the  demon  Ravana, 
and  the  Mahabharata,  the  subject  of  which  is  a  con- 
test between  two  rival  powers  for  the  government 
of  Hindoostan,  the  Kurus  and  the  Pandus,  and  in 
other  poems  of  less  distinction.  The  poetry  is 


33  8  LAWS   OF   BEAUTY. 

characteristically  wanting  in  unity,  and  loose  in 
construction. 

Didactic  poetry  appears  in  the  two  forms  of  pro- 
verbial or  aphorismic — the  gnomic  of  the  Hebrews 
— and  of  the  fable.  The  fables  of  Bidpai  have 
been  rendered  into  European  tongues. 

The  Drama  was  richly  cultivated  by  the  Hindoo 
mind.  The  Sakuntola  by  Kalidasi  was  translated 
into  English  by  Sir  William  Jones  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  last  century.  Other  dramas  have  since  been 
rendered  into  European  languages.  The  subjects 
are  legendary  ;  the  catastrophe  happy ;  the  form 
partly  verse,  partly  prose. 

§  3 1 2.  Grecian  art,  with  its  marvelous 
Grecian  Poetry,  fertility  of  invention  combined  with 

matchless  delicacy  and  purity  of  taste, 
carried  every  department  of  poetry  to  a  perfection 
that  is  proverbial ;  to  be  classic  is  to  be  artistically 
perfect. 

Lyric  poetry  in  all  varieties  of  subject 
Lyric.  and  of  verse-form,  and  characterized 

by  the  severe  taste  of  the  Greeks  in 
respect  to  unity  and  precise  shaping  of  theme, 
chasteness  of  imagery,  and  exactness  of  rhythm, 
as  well  as  purity  of  diction,  is  represented  in  the 
Odes  of  Sappho,  of  which  two  only  remain  com- 
plete, of  Pindar,  the  most  celebrated  of  which 
are  the  triumphal  odes,  and  of  Anacreon  ;  in  the 
plaintive  elegiacs  of  Mimnermus  ;  and  in  the  pas- 
toral Idyls — literally,  "little  things  of  beauty" — of 
Theocritus.  The  Greek  added  to  the  Hebrew 
Lyric  a  richly  varied  rhythm,  and  thus  contributed 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  339 

the   most  important  element  to  the  oral  body  of 
poetry. 

Epic  Poetry  leaped  forth  into  instant 
Epic.  maturity  from  the  fertile  brain  of  the 

Greek  in  the  immortal  poems  of  the 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey.  The  subjects — "  the  Wrath 
of  Achilles"  and  the  "Wanderings  of  Ulysses" — 
clearly,  distinctly,  truthfully  apprehended ;  the 
represented  characters,  diverse,  natural,  engaging  ; 
the  imagery,  simple,  chaste,  expressive  ;  the  rhythm, 
which  is  the  majestic  hexameter,  exact  yet  flowing, 
and  shaping  itself  as  its  variations  of  feet  and  of 
caesural  pause  will  admit,  to  the  variations  of  the 
sentiment ;  the  diction,  plain  yet  apt  and  mu- 
sical—  all  features  are  those  of  an  already  per- 
fected art. 

Dramatic  Poetry,  the  growth  of  a  later 
Dramatic.  period  than  the  Epic,  attained  a  some- 

what corresponding  rapidity  of  develop- 
ment. The  great  tragedies  of  ^Eschylus,  Sophocles, 
and  Euripides,  and  the  comedies  of  Aristophanes, 
are  characterized  by  the  same  Grecian  features  of 
unity  and  definiteness  of  idea,  truthfulness  of  event 
and  naturalness  of  character,  simplicity  of  imagery, 
richness  of  rhythm,  and  purity  and  significance  of 
diction.  In  its  poetry,  as  in  architecture  and 
painting,  Greek  art  was  rapid  in  its  growth,  ob- 
jective and  therefore  simple  and  material  in  its 
general  character ;  and  while  rich  and  expressive, 
yet  ever  of  the  exactest,  even  severest  taste,  that 
repressed  all  wild  luxuriance  and  shunned  all  tawdry 
adornments. 


34°  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

§  313.  In  Rome,  poetic  art  made  no 
Roman.  progress  upon  the  Grecian  models.  In 

the  Lyric,  the  odes  of  Horace  ;  in  the 
higher  Epic,  the  ALneid  of  Virgil,  and  in  the  lower 
narrative  the  pleasing  metamorphoses  of.  Ovid, 
poetic  renderings  of  mythological  legends  ;  and  in 
the  Dramatic,  the  comedies  of  Plautus  and  Terence, 
are  all  conceived  in  Grecian  spirit  and  cast  in 
Grecian  molds.  In  its  transition  from  Greece  to 
Italy  all  art  passed  from  a  simple,  natural  objective- 
ness,  to  a  labored,  artificial,  subjective  character, 
marking  decline  and  corruption. 

§  314.  In  modern  times  poetry  has 
Modem  poetry,  flourished  in  sympathy  with  all  art, 

and  has  marked  itself  with  generally 
similar  characteristics.  The  advance  has  been  in 
loftiness  and  breadth  of  ideal,  as  compared  with 
classic  art  ;  in  diversity  and  exuberance  of  imagery, 
in  both  these  respects  resembling  more  the  Hebrew 
poetry  in  its  religious  exaltation  of  idea  and  its  love 
of  natural  imagery ;  and  in  the  great  expansion  and 
development  of  all  the  oral  elements  of  expression — • 
rhythm,  melody,  and  harmony. 

Italy  led  in  the  awakening  of  modern 
Italian.  art.  In  the  thirteenth  century  Dante 

produced  the  masterpiece  of  Italian 
epic,  the  Divina  Commedia,  written  in  iambic  penta- 
meter catalectic  with  alternate  rhymes,  and  in  the 
next  century,  Petrarch,  the  father  of  Italian  lyric, 
his  numerous  sonnets,  songs  and  odes ;  in  the  six- 
teenth century  appeared  Ariosto,  the  composer  of  a 
romantic  epic,  the  Orlando  Furioso,  and  Tasso,  the 


SPECIAL   LAWS.  341 

writer  of  a  serious  epic,  the  Gierusalemme  Liberata, 
both  in  eight-versed  stanzas  of  iambic  pentameter 
catalectic,  rhymed.  Not  till  the  eighteenth  century 
did  dramatic  poetry  attain  great  distinction.  Then 
appeared  the  tragedians,  Maffei,  Alfieri,  and  others 
of  inferior  name  ;  and  the  comedian,  Goldoni,  with 
others. 

§  315.  In  Spain,  the  eminent  lyric 
Spanish  poets  were  Herrera  and  Leon,  both  of 

the  sixteenth  century.  In  1562-1635, 
lived  Lope  de  Vega,  a  most  prolific  writer  of  dramas 
and  other  poems. 

§  316.  The  one  great  poet  of  Portugal 
Portuguese.  is  Camoens,  1524-1579,  the  author  of 

the  Lusiad — a  poem  designed  to  com- 
memorate the  achievements  of  the  Portuguese — the 
Lusitanians. 

§  317.  French  poetry  originated  with 
French.  the  trouv&res,  composers  of  lyrics,  and 

the  troubadours,  who  wrote  poetic 
romances.  Corneille  and  Racine  in  tragedy,  Vol- 
taire in  his  epic,  the  Henriade,  and  Beranger  in 
lyric,  are  the  leading  names  in  the  different  depart- 
ments of  the  French  school  of  poetry.  This  school 
is  characterized  by  its  servitude  to  conventional 
rules  in  art,  which  shackle  genius  and  so  hinder  the 
growth  of  art  generally  as  well  as  individual  ex- 
cellence. 

§  318.  In  the  Teutonic  nations  of  Ger- 
Teutonic.  many  and  England,  modern  poetry 

has  made  its  best  progress.  The 
characteristic  spirit  in  both  is  the  so-called  romantic 


342  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

disposition,  which,  originally  engrafted  on  the 
Teutonic  spirit  of  freedom,  readily  imbibed  the 
oriental  love  of  nature,  as  exemplified  in  Hebrew 
poetry,  and  its  fondness  for  wild  adventure  and 
bold  speculation,  as  brought  to  it  in  the  Hindoo 
and  Arabic  philosophy  and  literature,  and  at  the 
same  time  chastened  and  tempered  itself  by  its 
converse  with  classic  and  particularly  early  Italian 
models.  The  age  of  chivalry,  which  was  penetrated 
with  large  streams  of  influence  from  the  oriental 
and  European  literatures  and  civilizations,  was  most 
favorable  to  the  germination  of  a  new  poetic  spirit 
The  prevalence  of  Christianity  exalted  and  enlarged 
poetic  ideas,  and  bathed  them  in  a  deeper,  warmer 
feeling,  as  well  as  animated  them  by  a  higher 
motive,  and  at  the  same  time  purified  and  attem- 
pered the  whole  outward  embodiment  of  them,  lead- 
ing to  a  chaster  yet  richer  imagery  and  diction. 

§  319.  The  true  lyric  spirit  has  pre- 
German.  dominated  from  the  first  among  the 

proper  German  tribes.  As  early  as  the 
twelfth  century,  the  minnesingers,  love-minstrels, 
frequented  the  palaces  and  castles  of  princes  and 
nobles,  like  the  trouvfrres  and  troubadours  in  France. 
Christianity,  especially  after  the  Lutheran  Reforma- 
tion, elevated  and  expanded  this  native  propensity ; 
and  the  richer  civilization  of  modern  times  has  given 
to  lyric  poetry  an  infinitely  diversified  extent  and 
richness  of  idea  and  of  form.  No  one  lyric  poet, 
nor  few,  can  be  named  who  will  more  fitly  repre- 
sent the  art  in  German  literature.  In  respect  of 
idea,  there  are  love  songs  of  every  variety,  martial 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  343 

songs,  festal  songs,  religious  hymns,  exultant  odes, 
and  plaintive  elegiacs  ;  and  in  respect  of  material, 
they  are  equally  diversified  in  respect  of  verse-form, 
rhythm,  and  rhyme. 

In  epic  poetry,  Klopstock's  Messiah  is,  perhaps, 
the  best  achievement  of  German  art.  The  epic 
spirit  has  devoted  itself  rather  to  the  prose  novel 
than  to  proper  poetry. 

Dramatic  poetry  reached  its  highest  culmination 
in  the  dramas  of  Schiller  and  Goethe,  who  tower 
high  above  all  other  German  composers  in  all  the 
great  departments  of  poetry. 

§  320.  English  poetry  ranks  easily 
English.  foremost  in  the  literature  of  modern 

times.  Its  beginnings  were  nourished 
in  the  forms  of  that  romantic  minstrelsy  which  was 
the  first  product  of  the  modern  poetic  spirit.  Love 
and  chivalry  were  its  inspirers,  and  shaped  its  ideas 
and  its  imagery.  The  narrative  in  the  metrical 
romance  was  a  coeval  form.  The  first  great  poet  in 
the  language  was  Chaucer,  whose  best  poems  are 
his  Canterbury  Tales.  Like  the  Germans,  the 
English  poets  have  confined  themselves  to  no  one 
particular  department  of  poetry,  but  have  generally 
cultivated  all,  yet  with  unequal  success  and  in 
unequal  degree. 

In  Lyric  poetry,  the  love  sonnets  of  the  earlier 
age  and  the  sacred  hymns  of  the  more  recent,  have 
won  the  highest  distinction. 

In  Epic,  the  Paradise  Lost  of  Milton  stands  side 
by  side  with  the  Iliad  of  Homer,  the  -<Eneid  of  Vir- 
gii,  the  Inferno  of  Dante.  Its  subject  lifted  the 


344  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

poet  into  the  highest  regions  of  thought  and  specu- 
lation ;  it  brought  in  the  divinest  and  the  most 
fiendish  in  immediate  play  with  the  manliest  and 
sweetest  of  human  feelings  ;  it  called  for  the  richest 
imagery  and  a  dignified,  sustained,  yet  flexible  dic- 
tion ;  the  inspired  poet  has  met  all  these  divers 
demands.  A  grander  theme,  vaster  ideals  of  char- 
acter, a  bolder,  more  varied  imagery,  a  freer  diction, 
it  justly  claims  above  all  its  great  rivals. 

Didactic  poetry  has  received  its  highest  culture 
since  the  seventeenth  century.  Pope,  Young, 
Thomson,  Cowper,  Wordsworth,  are  the  names  of 
but  few  that  have  attained  great  excellence  in  this 
province  of  poetry. 

The  Drama  has  its  chiefest  and  best  representa- 
tive in  Shakespeare  —  the  great  dramatist  of  uni- 
versal literature.  In  idea,  with  a  firm  and  steady 
grasp  he  held  his  ideal,  both  of  action  and  of  char- 
acter, throughout  the  most  complicated  develop- 
ment, with  unswerving  fidelity  and  truthfulness. 
The  whole  realm  of  dramatic  idea  he  commanded 
with  equal  facility,  tragic  and  comic.  Foreign  and 
domestic  history  alike  supplied  event  and  action. 
He  swept  through  the  gradations  of  feeling,  from 
the  sublimest  and  holiest,  to  the  lowest  and  most 
diabolical  in  the  human  bosom,  unfolding  the  ten- 
derest  sentiments  of  love  with  the  same  accuracy 
and  fullness  as  the  utmost  violence  of  hate  and  ic- 
venge ;  depicting  domestic  security  and  cheerfulness 
as  truly  as  national  strife  and  commotion,  and  pri- 
vate despair  or  joy.  Whatever  character  came 
across  his  view  he  caught  and  reproduced  in  lines  01 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  345 

living  light.  The  perfect  naturalness  in  all  the  man- 
ifold personages  of  his  dramas — prince  or  peasant, 
old  or  young,  hero  or  maiden,  human  or  elfish,  living 
men  or  ghosts  of  the  departed — is  as  astonishing  as  is 
the  power  with  which  he  wields  whatever  historic 
theme  he  takes.  Through  systematic  truth  and 
history  alike  he  moves,  disturbing  no  system,  dis- 
torting no  received  opinion,  tripping  never  in  the- 
ology and  law  and  natural  science  when  his  path 
leads  him  through  these  fields  of  knowledge.  The 
natural  world  is  equally  familiar ;  he  has  studied  the 
clouds,  has  marked  the  winds,  and  watched  the  dew- 
drop  ;  he  has  observed  the  life  of  plant,  of  bird  and 
beast,  as  well  as  of  rational  spirit.  An  inexhausti- 
ble wealth  of  idea,  such  perhaps  as  has  never  fallen 
into  the  possession  of  any  other  poet,  was  his,  and 
he  used  it  as  lavishly  as  it  had  been  bountifully 
heaped  upon  him. 

He  had  also  great  wealth  of  material.  His  seri- 
ous renderings  are  in  heroic  verse ;  but  he  drops  to 
prose  as  scene,  or  character,  or  aim  requires.  He 
has  little  occasion  for  rhyme  where  the  stately  but 
free  heroic  verse  occurs.  But  in  his  lyrics  with 
which  he  enlivens  and  beautifies  a  more  solid  struc- 
ture, he  makes  a  free  use  of  this  element.  His  sen- 
tences are  not  unmelodious  ;  but  are  too  direct  and 
simple  for  the  richer  forms  of  rhetorical  melody. 
His  imagery  is  simple,  natural,  popular. 

It  is  however  in  rendering,  in  embodying  his  idea 
in  word,  that  Shakespeare's  chief  distinction  as  3 
poet  lies.  Idea  never  overbears  the  outer  body  in 
which  it  is  to  live ;  nor  is  it  overborne  on  its  part 


346  LAWS   OF   BEAUTY 

and  obscured  in  the  material.  The  fit  word  to  the 
fit  thought,  fit  body  to  fit  idea,  characterize  his 
style.  Well  has  it  been  said  that  you  cannot 
change  a  word  or  sentence  but  to  mar.  He  repu- 
diates the  shackles  of  conventional  unity  as  it 
respects  the  mere  accidents  of  time  and  place ; 
while  he  never  violated  the  true  unity  of  action  and 
of  aim.  The  principle  of  contrast  he  turned  to 
greater  account  than  any  other  dramatist.  While 
he  did  not  disdain  verbal  antitheses,  he  did  not 
make  so  much  of  them  as  of  the  higher  antitheses 
of  thought,  of  action,  of  character,  of  dramatic  effect. 
His  characters  are  indeed  revealed  as  much  almost 
in  the  oppositions  of  other  personages  as  in  their 
own  light ;  and  he  knew  how  to  alternate  earnest- 
ness with  play,  majesty  with  delicacy,  firmness  with 
tenderness,  mirth  with  sadness,  as  few  others.  With 
especial  adaptation  in  selection  of  theme,  in  disposi- 
tion of  scene,  and  working  of  plot,  in  choice  of  char- 
acter, in  verbal  style,  to  the  age  in  which  he  lived, 
to  the  manners,  intelligence,  taste,  even  humor  of  the 
court  for  whose  entertainment  he  wrote,  yet  no  less 
for  all  countries,  for  all  ages,  for  the  race,  are  his 
immortal  dramas  fitted  to  instruct,  to  entertain,  to 
please,  to  refine.  In  them  the  true  taste  finds 
unfailing  matter  for  its  enjoyment,  admiration,  and 
culture. 


SPECIAL    LAWS. 


CHAPTER  XL 

INTERPRETATION    OF   BEAUTY. 

§  321.  We  have  distinguished  the  laws 
What.  of  beauty  into  the  two  classes  of  those 

which  respect  the  production  and  those 
which  respect  the  interpretation  of  beauty.  The 
former  class  look  to  the  communicating  mind  ;  the 
latter  to  the  receiving  mind.  The  former  are  the 
laws  of  the  active  imagination  ;  the  latter  are  the 
laws  of  the  passive  imagination.  Beauty,  form  *• 
we  have  seen,  is  the  intermediate  ;  it  is  common  .  j 
both.  But  it  has  one  aspect  to  the  producing, 
another  to  the  receiving  imagination.  We  have 
considered  the  first  class  of  laws  ;  we  turn  now  to 
the  second  class — the  laws  of  the  interpretation  of 
beauty ;  the  laws  of  the  passive  imagination  ;  the 
laws  which  apply  to  the  reception  of  form  or 
beauty. 

§  322.  The  comprehensive  question 
Method.  which  we  are  to  solve  is  simply  this : 

How  can  we  best — most  accurately, 
most  fully,  most  intensely — apprehend  beauty  ? 
We  shall  obtain  the  answer  by  first  analyzing  the 
passive  imagination  which  is  addressed  in  all  beauty 
that  we  may  more  distinctly  see  what  in  it  is  to  be 
reached,  or  in  other  words,  what  in  it  is  to  be 
brought  into  communication  with  the  beauty  ad- 


34^  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

dressing  us ;  what  is  the  function  which  each  of 
these  analyzed  parts  is  to  perform,  and  how  our 
apprehension  of  beauty  may  vary  in  degree  and  in 
fullness  by  the  different  degrees  in  which  these 
functions  are  brought  into  play ;  as  also  how  we 
may  keep  what  is  liable  to  be  mingled  with  our 
experience  of  beauty  separate  and  distinct  from  the 
pure  form  itself  and  its  legitimate  impression.  Our 
solution  may  then  be  tested  and  illustrated  by  its 
application  to  the  several  constituents  of  objective 
beauty  as  already  ascertained. 

§  323.      I.    THE    SUBJECTIVE    LAWS 

Of  sensibility.          GOVERNING    THE    INTERPRETATION    OF 

BEAUTY. — The  essential  element  of  the 
passive  imagination  is  sensibility.  But  sensibility 
belongs  to  a  spiritual  nature  that  has  other  endow- 
ments and  characteristics  ;  and  the  passive  imagina- 
tion is  diversely  affected  by  this  complex  spiritual 
nature  to  which  it  belongs.  The  sensibility  itself 
cannot  receive  in  its  fullest  perfection  and  degree 
the  forms  that  address  it  except  as  aided  and  deter- 
mined by  these  other  endowments.  The  considera- 
tion of  the  sensibility  in  itself  and  as  related  to  the 
spiritual  nature  generally  in  its  divers  endowments 
will  guide  us  at  once  to  the  conditions  of  a  perfect 
interpretation  of  beauty. 

§  324.  The  comprehensive  law  or  con- 

Conditionsof     "...  . 

esthetic  sensibii-  dition  of  a  full  interpretation  of  beauty 
founded  in  the  receiving  mind  is,  thus, 
a  true  sensibility  to  form.  In  order  to  experience 
beauty  the  first  and  indispensable  requisite  is  a  sen- 
sibility that  can  be  impressed  by  it.  And  it  is 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  349 

obvious  that  the  more  impressible  the  passive  imag- 
ination, the  more  immediately  and  closely  it  is 
brought  into  communication  with  the  addressing 
form,  and  the  more  entirely  the  sensibility  is  sur- 
rendered to  the  impression,  the  more  full  and  pure 
and  perfect  will  be  the  experience  of  beauty.  We 
have  thus  given  us  at  once  the  conditions  of  beauty 
founded  in  the  sensibility  itself. 

First,  it  must  be  impressible.  There 
i.  impressible.  is  great  diversity  in  different  persons 

in  this  respect ;  there  is  great  diversity 
in  different  conditions  of  the  same  person.  Age 
and  use,  it  is  commonly  believed,  dull  and  blunt  the 
sense.  So  far  as  the  mere  outward,  the  proper 
physical  and  animal  sense  is  concerned,  this  opinion 
may  be  correct.  But  the  human  sensibility  which 
is  addressed  in  beauty  is  more  than  mere  animal, 
physical  sense,  however  closely  related  to  it,  and 
connected  with  it.  The  outward  organ  dims  with 
age ;  but  the  mind,  the  spirit,  there  is  reason  to 
believe,  becomes  by  use  more  and  more  sensitive  to 
these  outer  impressions.  If  the  bodily  nerve  is  less 
impressible,  the  soul  that  takes  its  impressions  from 
these  nervous  agitations  becomes  more  and  more 
alive  and  sensitive  to  them.  Thus  is  explained  the 
common  experience  that  the  cultivated  spirit  grows 
ever  more  tender  and  sensitive  to  beauty,  even 
although  the  outward  organ  becomes  more  dull. 
The  phenomenon  can  be  fully  accounted  for,  per- 
haps, only  by  supposing  that  the  active  imagination, 
answering  ever  more  and  more  readily  with  exercise 
to  the  impressions  on  the  sense,  comes  in  more 


35O  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

freely  to  help  out  the  full  apprehension  of  form. 
But  whatever  the  explanation  of  the  phenomenon, 
certainly  within  certain  limits  the  sensibility  be- 
comes more  capable  of  fulfilling  its  high  function  of 
bringing  beauty  into  the  experience  with  advance 
in  culture.     And  the  law  remains  that  as  beauty 
first  addresses  the  sensibility,  and  addresses  imme- 
diately that   only,  in  order  to  the   experience  of 
beauty,  a  tender,  impressible  sensibility  is  required. 
§  325.   Secondly,  the  more  closely  the 
onof   sensibility  is  brought  into  communica- 
tion with  the  addressing  form  the  more 
perfect  will  be  the  experience  of  beauty.     It  is  pos- 
sible that  there  may  be  a  certain  sense  of  beauty 
which    is    moved    through   the   intelligence  ;    that 
beauty  may  be  reasoned  out,  or  be  reached  through 
analysis  or  other  intellectual  process.     So  it  is  un- 
doubtedly true  that  the  feelings  which  it  is  the 
province  of  music  to  communicate  may  be  stirred 
simply   by   reading    the   written   notes    on   paper. 
Assisted  by  his  active  imagination,  a  trained  musi- 
cian may  feel  more  music  from  perusing  such  writ- 
ten characters  in  a  given  composition,  than  a  tyro 
from  hearing  the  composition  rendered  in  proper 
sound.    Yet  after  all,  the  sense  of  music  is  immeasu- 
rably enhanced  even  to  the  trained  musician  when 
his  inward  ear  receives  through  the  outward  organ 
the  immediate  vibrations  of  musical  sound.     Beet- 
hoven was  able  to  bring  his  soul  immediately  into 
communication  with  music  even  through  the  sensa- 
tions of  fingering  the  keys  ;  but  how  lamentably  did 
he  bewail  his  loss  of  hearing  as  the  immediate  organ 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  35! 

of  musical  form,  as  so  far  deadening  his  sense  of  its 
richness  and  beauty.  No  reasoning,  no  analysis,  no 
imagining,  no  skill  or  past  experience,  can  but  par- 
tially supply  the  need  of  a  sensibility  brought  into 
immediate  contact  with  the  addressing  form.  As 
therefore  we  approach  at  the  greeting  of  beauty  and 
seek  to  apprehend  the  full  import  of  her  address,  we 
need  to  unveil  our  eye  to  her  form  and  turn  our  ear 
so  as  to  catch  the  full  tones  of  her  voice.  Beauty 
addresses  sense,  and  the  more  immediately,  the 
more  impressively. 

§  326.  Thirdly,  the  more  entirely  and 

^Entire  surren-     exclusively    tne     sensibility    IS    SUITCn- 

dered  to  the  impression  from  beauty, 
the  more  perfect  will  the  experience  of  it  be.  Just 
so  far  as  we  occupy  our  minds  otherwise,  just  so  far 
will  the  impression  be  indistinct  and  obscure.  If, 
while  we  seek  to  feel,  we  try  to  reason,  to  criticise, 
to  reflect  and  follow  trains  of  suggestion,  we  hinder 
the  proper  effect  of  beauty  on  us.  This  observation, 
however,  should  be  interpreted  only  in  subordina- 
tion to  the  conditions  of  beauty  which  are  derived 
from  the  relationship  of  the  sensibility  to  the  other 
endowments  of  our  being,  and  in  harmony  with 
them.  Thus  understood,  the  principle  that  imposes 
entire  surrender  to  the  impressions  of  beauty  as  a 
condition  to  its  highest  experience  is  self  evident. 

§  327.  2.  The  sensibility  which  in  its  el- 
acfive^afur!?  an  ementary  nature  is  simple  passivity  or 

impressibility ,  simple  capacity  of  receiv- 
ing impression,  is  however  not  a  dead,  lifeless  pas- 
sivity. It  belongs  to  an  essentially  active  nature. 


352  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

As  an  endowment  of  spirit,  it  is  of  a  spiritual  na- 
ture ;  it  participates  in  the  essential  characteristic 
of  such  a  nature,  which  is  activity.  There  can  be 
no  full  apprehension  of  beauty  except  by  such  a 
living,  active  sensibility.  It  may  be  difficult  to  set 
forth  in  language,  perhaps  impossible  to  conceive 
fully  in  thought,  the  precise  nature  of  this  modifica- 
tion of  the  sensibility.  But  of  its  reality  and  its 
importance  in  the  right  interpretation  of  beauty, 
there  can  be  no  question.  The  spirit  moves  as  it  is 
impressed.  There  is  ever  activity  answering  to 
impression.  The  chords  of  the  soul  vibrate  when 
struck  ;  they  are  elastic  and  react.  There  is  in  a 
true  apprehension  of  beauty  not  only  susceptibil- 
ity, but  playfulness,  responsiveness — a  stir  and  mo- 
tion in  which  the  whole  soul  participates. 

§  328.  3.  The  sensibility  in  order  to 
sympathetic.  the  full  apprehension  of  beauty  must 

be  sympathetic.  This  element  enters 
into  the  spiritual  nature  of  man  to  which  the  sensi- 
bility belongs.  There  are  divers  degrees  and  mod- 
ifications of  sympathy  as  modifying  the  aesthetic 
sense.  There  is  the  lower  degree  of  the  mere  sym- 
pathy of  being  with  being,  life  with  life,  spirit  with 
spirit.  There  is  the  higher  degree  of  loving  sym- 
pathy which  draws  the  soul  out  in  warm  affection 
towards  the  object  which  addresses  it.  We  are  not 
readily  impressed  by  that  which  has  no  hold  of  our 
hearts,  to  which  we  are  indifferent.  Hate  may  stir 
feeling,  but  not  that  kind  of  feeling  which  is  favor- 
able to  aesthetic  impression — which  extends  only  to 
the  form.  Even  love  that  carries  the  soul  beyond 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  353 

the  contemplation  of  the  form  to  the  being  that  ad- 
dresses it,  is  unfavorable  to  the  proper  experience  of 
beauty.  But  that  loving  sympathy  which  keeps  the 
love  in  steady,  satisfied  contemplation,  is  the  con- 
dition of  the  richest  experience  of  beauty.  Far- 
ther, there  is  the  sympathy  which  goes  out  to  the 
source  of  the  impression,  the  being  that  addresses 
us,  which  as  just  observed  may  hinder,  or  as  in  right 
degree  may  aid  aesthetic  effect.  There  is  too  the 
special  sympathy  with  the  kind  of  form  which  pre- 
sents itself.  The  musician  sympathizes  with  the 
forms  of  melodious  and  harmonious  sound ;  the 
painter  with  the  outlines  and  hues  of  visible  form. 
But  of  whatever  degree  or  modification,  this  sym- 
pathy, this  loving  sympathy,  must  enter  into  every 
full  sense  of  beauty.  The  appreciation  of  beauty, 
the  enjoyment  of  beauty,  the  proper  effect  of 
beauty,  depends  on  the  degree  of  sympathy  with 
which  it  is  contemplated.  Ever  in  beauty  heart 
addresses  heart,  and  the  livelier  the  sympathy,  the 
warmer  will  be  the  glow  and  fervor  of  the  com- 
munion. 

§  329.  4.  The  sensibility  in  apprehend- 
inteiiigent  ing  form  is  not  only  active  and  sym- 

pathetic but  intelligent.  It  partici- 
pates in  a  nature  which  is  essentially  intelligent ; 
and  can  never  lay  aside  this  relationship,  any  more 
than  the  arterial  system  can  separate  itself  from  the 
muscular  system  of  the  bodily  framework.  In  truth 
the  connection  is  more  essential  and  intricate  than 
this.  We  may  as  well  imagine  a  right  side  of  the 
body  with  no  left  side,  as  sensibility  without  intel- 


354  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

ligence.  We  may  think  of  either  side  abstractedly 
from  the  other  ;  but  in  actual  being  the  one  cannot 
be  without  the  other.  It  is  an  intelligent  sensibil- 
ity that  is  summoned  to  receive  the  addresses  of 
beauty.  The  very  notion  of  beauty  as  we  have 
proved  it  involves  this.  There  is  no  beauty  where 
there  is  no  idea ;  and  all  idea  is  as  truly  for  the  in- 
telligence as  for  the  sensibility.  The  true  is  only 
another  phase  of  the  beautiful.  Like  the  sunbeam, 
idea  is  light  to  the  eye  of  the  intelligence,  and  heat 
to  the  warmth-sense  of  the  heart.  The  interpreta- 
tion of  beauty,  the  reception  of  aesthetic  form  is, 
other  things  being  equal,  ever  in  proportion  to  the 
intelligence  which  characterizes  the  sensibility  to 
which  beauty  or  form  addresses  itself.  The  ani- 
mal has  no  sense  of  beauty  in  its  proper  sense. 
The  child's  sense  of  beauty  is  very  limited.  The 
gaudiest,  most  glaring  colors  entertain  it  more  than 
the  most  finished  paintings.  Its  physical  sense  is 
pleasantly  affected,  and  that  pleasure  is  elevated 
and  enhanced  by  the  little  of  true  rationality  that 
its  undeveloped  nature  is  capable  of  imparting  to 
its  sensations.  The  adult  mind  that  has  only  the 
ordinary  knowledge  of  art  enjoys  comparatively  lit- 
tle as  he  perceives  comparatively  little  when  an  art 
product  is  presented  to  his  view,  compared  with 
the  expert  artist.  To  the  one  the  object  is  vague, 
dim,  little  more  than  a  blank ;  to  the  other  it  stands 
out  in  bold,  distinct  relief,  in  full  light,  and  crowded 
with  expression.  The  one  passes  his  eye  over  it 
and  leaves  it  carrying  away  little  though  he  has  ex- 
hausted all  the  treasures  it  has  for  him.  The  other 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  355 

lingers,  and  weary  with  a  natural  weariness  of 
study  and  enjoyment  returns  to  repeat  his  study, 
sees  beauty  after  beauty  rise,  and  finds  his  pro- 
longed and  busy  contemplation  over-laden  with  the 
richest  treasures  of  aesthetic  enjoyment.  It  is  be- 
cause his  intelligence  in  regard  to  what  there  is  of 
art  in  the  object,  his  practiced  eye,  his  enlarged 
view,  his  sharpened  vision  is  able  to  interpret  more, 
apprehend  more  in  it.  The  ideal  is  more  fully  per- 
ceived, the  material  is  more  perfectly  understood, 
the  rendering  too  is  more  perfectly  recognized  in 
all  its  elements  of  justness  of  adaptation,  of  skill  in 
embodying,  of  power  to  wield  idea  and  mate- 
rial, to  surmount  difficulties,  to  enforce  his  aim  to 
the  happy  result,  and  of  love  and  patience  and  care 
poured  into  the  labor  of  his  hands.  The  apprehen- 
sion of  beauty  is  as  the  intelligence  characterizing 
the  sensibility  that  would  apprehend  it 

§  33°-  5-  The  highest  form  of  sensi- 
MoraL  .  bility  is  that  which  characterizes  it  as 

moral.  The  aesthetic  nature  is  but  a 
part  or  a  phase  of  the  rational  nature  whose  highest 
form  and  characteristic  is  the  moral.  The  moral 
nature,  as  essentially  free,  is  in  its  normal  condition 
only  when  moving  in  goodness  and  rectitude.  The 
sensibility  which  participates  in  this  moral  nature  is 
in  its  best  condition  to  exercise  its  proper  func- 
tion of  apprehending  form  or  beauty  only  when  it 
is  thus  morally  affected  in  rectitude  and  goodness. 
Only  then  can  it  be  in  sympathy  with  the  highest 
beauty ;  only  then  can  it  fully  and  perfectly  appre- 
hend such  beauty ;  only  then  consequently  can  it 
fully  appreciate  and  enjoy  it. 


356  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

A  proper  aesthetic  sensibility,  we  may  then  sum- 
marily characterize  as  active,  sympathetic,  intelli- 
gent, and  moral. 

II.  THE  OBJECTIVE  LAWS  GOVERNING  THE  IN- 
TERPRETATION OF  BEAUTY. — §  331.  The  laws  gov- 
erning the  interpretation  of  beauty  which  are 
founded  in  the  object  that  is  presented  —  in  the  ad- 
dressing imagination — ought  to  be  the  exact  coun- 
terpart of  those  which  are  founded  in  the  subject 
of  the  experience  of  beauty,  the  passive  imagina- 
tion— the  mind  addressed.  We  shall  on  investiga- 
tion find  this  exact  correspondence  between  the  na- 
ture of  objective  beauty  and  the  nature  of  a  true 
experience  of  beauty. 

In  the  first  place,  we  have  found  beauty  to  be  es- 
sentially and  characteristically  revelation — address- 
ing form.  Just  as  in  sight  there  must  be  a  visible 
object  and  a  visual  organ,  in  exact  correspondence 
each  with  the  other,  so  in  the  experience  of  beauty, 
there  must  be  an  object  of  beauty  and  a  sensibil- 
ity to  beauty  in  exact  correspondence.  As  we  have 
all  along  seen,  in  all  experience  of  beauty  an  ac- 
tive imagination  addresses  a  passive  imagination. 
There  is  beauty  produced,  there  is  beauty  received. 
There  is,  to-  speak  more  technically,  form  mediating 
between  impressing  mind  and  mind  impressed — 
form  the  same  in  itself  but  having  a  two-fold  as- 
pect, an  objective  and  a  subjective.  Beauty  to  be 
felt  implies  thus  a  sensibility  to  be  impressed. 
The  more  tender,  that  is  the  more  impressible  the 
sensibility,  the  more  deeply  will  the  object  impress 
it.  The  more  closely  it  is  brought  into  communi- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  357 

cation  with  the  object,  the  more  full,  also,  and 
effectual  will  be  the  impression.  And  still  further 
the  more  entirely  the  sensibility  is  surrendered  to 
the  impressing  object,  the  more  pure  and  perfect 
the  impression.  A  consideration  thus  of  the  na- 
ture of  objective  beauty  imposes  this  condition  in 
experience  that  there  be  a  sensibility,  impressi- 
ble, in  close  communication  with  its  object,  and  ex- 
clusively occupied  with  it.  The  tenderer  the  sen- 
sibility, the  more  closely  in  connection  with  the 
object,  that  is,  through  the  less  medium  of  thought, 
of  analysis,  of  criticism,  of  reflection,  of  associa- 
tion, of  purpose,  of  aim,  of  mental  activity  of  any 
kind,  and  the  more  exclusively  the  mind  is  sur- 
rendered to  the  object,  the  higher,  the  deeper,  and 
wider,  and  purer  will  be  the  experience  of  the 
beauty. 

§  332.  Sensible  beauty  can  reach  the 
Law  of  medium,  soul  only  through  the  bodily  sense. 

So  far  all  experience  of  such  beauty  is 
necessarily  mediate.  And  we  have  found  a  prop- 
erly mediate  beauty — a  beauty  that  comes  to  us 
only  through  some  medium  as  the  thought  comes 
to  us  mediately  through  the  written  word.  This 
first  law  of  interpretation  prescribes  that  all  such 
medium  be  abstracted  as  far  as  possible  from  our 
regard  in  the  contemplation  of  the  object. 

§  333-  Secondly,  all  idea  revealed  is  from 
of  idea.  spirit  which  is  essentially  active  in  its 

nature.  The  dead  forms  of  nature, 
as  they  are  sometimes  characterized,  are  but 
the  ideas  of  the  divine  activity  impressed  in 


358  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

matter.  We  enter  into  the  depths  of  natural 
beauty  only  as  we  discern  these  characters  of  ac- 
tivity. All  objects,  all  events,  says  Jouffroy  truly, 
are  symbols  of  force,  of  spirit  as  the  only  force ; 
and  we  catch  the  fullnesss  of  their  forms  only  as 
we  apprehend  the  force,  the  spiritual  activity  which 
they  symbolize. 

§  334.  Thirdly,  we  have  found  beauty 
or  a  revelation,  to  be  essentially  idea  revealed ;  that  is,  a 
form  of  mind,  of  spirit  is  of  the  es- 
sence of  objective  beauty.  But  beauty  is  for  mind, 
for  spirit  alone ;  only  mind,  only  spirit  can  experi- 
ence it.  In  all  experience  of  beauty,  accordingly, 
the  essential  thing  in  the  phenomenon  is  that  mind 
speaks  to  mind,  spirit  to  spirit  The  law  hence 
arises  that  the  more  sympathetic  the  communion, 
the  more  deeply  and  tenderly  the  contemplating 
mind  enters  into  the  condition  of  the  communica^ 
ting  mind,  and  moreover  regards  it  as  communica- 
ting, as  revealing  to  itself,  the  higher  and  more  per- 
fect will  be  the  experience  of  the  beauty.  It  is  a 
lower  degree  of  conformity  to  this  law  when  the 
contemplating  mind  looks  no  farther  than  the  idea 
and  not  beyond  to  the  revealing  mind — sympa- 
thizes with  the  idea  revealed,  and  with  the  revela- 
tion, but  not  with  the  mind  revealing  the  idea. 

We  have  familiar  applications  of  the  law  which 
illustrate  its  nature  and  force.  A  poem  written  by 
one  we  have  never  known,  may  be  to  us  beautiful  ; 
we  may  be  in  sympathy  with  the  idea  it  reveals, 
from  whatever  source  that  idea  may  come.  But  if 
the  poet  be  one  whom  we  know,  whose  views,  whose 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  359 

feelings,  whose  aims  we  understand,  with  which 
also  we  are  in  tender  personal  sympathy,  a  new 
brightness,  significance,  charm,  and  beauty  at  once 
invests  it  to  our  view.  It  is  a  more  speaking  form 
to  us.  We  cannot  thus  enter  into  the  idea  of  a 
stranger  to  us,  or  of  one  from  whom  our  sympa- 
thies estrange  us.  So  a  man  who  has  no  heart  can 
have  "no  music  in  himself;"  he  cannot  sympathize 
with  a  speaking  heart ;  "  the  motions  of  his  spirit 
are  dull  as  night,  and  his  affections  dark  as  Ere- 
bus." In  the  same  way,  the  observer  of  nature 
that  knows  no  spirit  speaking  in  it,  or  has  no  sym- 
pathy with  it  in  its  views  and  feelings  and  designs, 
or  none  with  the  particular  idea  revealed  in  its  di- 
vers scenes,  is  so  far  debarred  from  seeing  beauty 
in  it.  Most  justly  as  well  as  beautifully  does  the 
sweet  poet  of  nature,  Cowper,  insist : — 

"  Acquaint  thyself  with  God,  if  thou  wouldst  taste 
His  works.     Admitted  once  to  His  embrace, 
Thou  shalt  perceive  that  thou  wast  blind  before  : 
Thine  eye  shall  be  instructed ;  and  thine  heart 
Made  pure  shall  relish  with  divine  delight, 
Till  then  unfelt,  what  hands  divine  have  wrought" 

§  335.  Fourthly,  all  idea  revealed  in 
or  intelligence,  beauty  is  from  an  intelligent  source. 

The  idea  itself  is  characterized  with 
intelligence.  Even  music  which  immediately  re- 
veals feeling,  reveals  the  feeling  of  an  intelligent 
spirit.  How  little  of  the  power  of  music  can  he 
know  who  has  no  intelligence  of  the  thought  which 
moved  the  feeling  of  the  composer.  Mozart,  before 
he  can  begin  his  composition,  requires  his  libretto — 
the  full,  detailed  narrative  in  character,  scene, 


360  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

progress,  issue.  He  first  takes  that  into  his 
intelligence ;  he  ponders  it,  studies  carefully  out 
every  personage,  every  incident,  every  develop- 
ment, and  then  yields  his  feelings  to  the  varying 
thought,  to  be  stirred  more  or  less  intensely,  or  in 
this  or  that  direction,  precisely  as  the  details  of  his 
libretto  impress  him.  Only  till  then  does  his 
proper  artistic  work  begin.  Then  he  begins  to 
speak  forth  in  musical  sound  those  feelings  thus 
awakened. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  full  grasp  of  Mozart's  soul 
put  forth  into  his  music  cannot  be  without  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  objects,  the  same  individually  or  the 
same  in  kind  as  it  respects  the  feeling  which  they 
awaken.  There  must  be  intelligence  of  the  ideas 
revealed,  in  order  to  the  full  enjoyment  of  the  music 
of  Mozart.  But  equally  necessary  is  a  knowledge 
of  the  material,  the  sounds  in  which  the  feelings 
are  embodied,  the  principles  of  musical  rhythm, 
melody,  and  harmony.  How  much  higher  and 
richer  is  the  artist's  enjoyment  of  music,  who  feels, 
because  he  understands,  all  the  movements  in 
modulation  and  counterpoint !  Still  farther,  there 
is  need  of  intelligence  in  regard  to  the  whole  matter 
of  rendering — of  embodying  in  sound.  The  power 
and  skill  of  the  composer  reveal  themselves  every- 
where in  the  music,  and  make  up  a  part  of  its 
proper  power  over  the  spirit. 

The  "  pleasure  in  poetic  pains,  which  only  poets 
know,"  is  incorporated  with  the  idea  and  the  matter 
into  the  product,  and  contributes  to  its  proper 
aesthetic  value  and  effect.  But  such  joys,  belonging 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  361 

to  him  that  sings,  can  be  felt  only  by  him  that 
knows  what  power  and  skill  and  successful  labor 
in  art  are.  Accordingly,  in  familiar  experience  we 
find  that  a  photographic  portrait,  accurate  as  it  is, 
awakens  but  little  interest  as  a  product  compared 
with,  a  painting  although  not  so  perfect  a  likeness. 
Ifi  the  photograph,  there  is  little  that  is  truly 
artistic  ;  the  production  is  mostly  mechanical.  In 
a  picture,  it  is  the  accurate  discernment  of  feature 
by  the  artist,  his  just  reading  of  character  in  it, 
his  skill  in  rendering  in  figure  and  color,  the  grace 
of  his  penciling  and  the  delicacy  of  his  touch,  that 
give  to  it  its  charm  as  a  work  of  art.  The  great 
beauty  of  a  photograph  lies  in  the  revealed  char- 
acter of  the  subject  in  the  sun-copied  tracings  of 
his  features  ;  the  commanding  artistic  value  of  a 
painting  lies  this  side  of  that  in  the  rendering, 
fidelity  and  skill  of  the  painter.  The  beauty  of  a 
painting  is  thus  greatly  heightened  by  a  knowledge 
of  the  mental  power  and  the  skill  which  have  been 
put  into  it.  So  there  is  beauty  in  mere  musical 
execution,  which  successfully  surmounts  obstacles 
and  achieves  triumphs  in  vocal  or  instrumental 
endeavor,  independently  of  the  proper  aesthetic 
character  of  the  composition. 

It  is  thus  the  intelligent  taste  that  best  appre- 
ciates beauty.  The  child's  eye  recognizes  little 
beauty  in  a  masterpiece  of  art ;  the  expert  artist 
catches  the  largest  inspiration  from  all  beauty. 
Not  mere  intelligence,  knowledge  of  principles, 
critical  learning,  but  practiced  intelligence  that  is 
quick  and  sure  to  discern  the  divers  constituents  of 


362  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

beauty  is  a  condition  of  aesthetic  interpretation. 
Into  every  object  of  beauty  there  enter  various 
elements,  each  of  which  contributes  to  its  proper 
effect,  and  needs  to  be  apprehended.  The  idea 
itself,  in  its  manifold  modifications  and  relatiens, 
the  material  in  its  absolute  and  relative  fitness-  or 
unfitness,  the  rendering  above  all,  comprehending 
the  moral  design  of  the  producer,  whether  he  be 
divine  or  human,  the  intelligence  and  the  loving 
affection  which  he  has  breathed  into  it,  in  all  their 
infinite  degrees  and  modes,  the  skill  and  grace,  too, 
in  the  countless  forms  in  which  they  appear  in 
every  product  of  creative  art,  all  these  are  for  the 
aesthetic  intelligence  in  its  experience  of  beauty. 
And  as  intelligence  here  only  appears  as  subor- 
dinate to  the  sensibility,  to  enlarge  and  exalt  and 
intensify  its  movements,  it  must  not  be  slow  and 
groping  in  its  action,  and  so  make  itself  predomi- 
nant or  interpose  itself  between  the  object  and  the 
sense  ;  but  quick,  self-moved,  instinctive,  as  it  were, 
and  never  lifting  itself  into  distinct  consciousness. 
By  this  we  understand  in  part,  perhaps  in  chief, 
how  it  is  that  a  product  of  art  grows  in  beauty  to 
the  continued  contemplation  and  prolonged  study. 
The  intelligence  catches  up  one  element  after 
another,  and  brings  it  into  the  common  storehouse  ; 
turns  one  ray  after  another  into  the  common 
radiant,  and  so  enhances  its  power.  Thus  it  is 
that  the  lover  of  nature,  of  the  beautiful  work  of  the 
divine  artist,  becomes  ever  more  and  more  enamored 
of  its  beauty,  with  fresh  study  and  prolonged  view 
being  lifted  to  discern  a  fuller  and  richer  beauty — 


SPECIAL  LAWS.  363 

more  of  the  divine  idea  of  power  and  wisdom  and 
goodness  ;  more  of  the  mysterious  qualities  of  that 
strange  substance — matter — into  which  this  divine 
idea  has  shaped  itself  to  make  it  discernible  by  his 
creatures  ;  more  of  that  marvelous  skill  and  grace 
with  which  he  has  penciled  all  its  outlines  and 
tinged  and  blended  all  its  hues. 

§  336.  Fifthly,  all  form,  all  beauty  is 
Ofnjoraieie-  from  a  mors^  SOUTCe  Qnly  a  rational 

spirit  can  create  beauty,  and  to  be  ra- 
tional is  to  be  moral.  The  artist  cnanot  wholly  di- 
vest himself  of  his  moral  nature.  Even  the  sup- 
pression of  its  higher  and  truer  instincts  is  of  a 
moral  character.  To  be  moral  is  to  be  good  in  re- 
spect to  the  end  and  aim  and  legitimate  result  of 
any  act  and  to  be  right  in  moving  towards  this  re- 
sult. Even  when  genius  is  corrupt  and  art  is  de- 
praved, it  yet  can  never  put  itself  entirely  without 
the  pale  of  the  moral  nature  in  which  it  partici- 
pates. If  the  aim  in  art  even  be  vicious  and  devilish, 
the  work  must  yet  to  some  degree  disguise  itself  in 
a  decent  garb.  All  beauty  thus  is  necessarily  in 
the  moral  sphere.  To  apprehend  it  aright,  there- 
fore, and  fully,  it  must  be  apprehended  with  a  moral 
disposition  and  spirit. 

From  pure  art,  the  pure  soul  imbibes  most  freely 
and  most  copiously.  It  enters  into  a  warmer  sym- 
pathy with  both  artist  and  product ;  it  receives  in 
larger  supplies  the  blessing  that  comes  from  all 
true  art.  It  appreciates  better,  interprets  better 
than  the  impure  and  defiled  spirit  possibly  can. 
But  still  this  moral  disposition  and  life  must  under- 


364  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

lie  the  sensibility  and  only  enliven  and  expand  that. 
To  be  morally  profited  in.  the  contemplation  of 
beauty  must  be  the  indirect  fruit  and  consequence, 
not  the  immediate  effect.  The  moral  nature  is  fos- 
tered, purified,  and  guided  in  art  not  by  direct 
aim  and  effect  on  itself,  but  through  the  heightened 
and  purified  sensibility,  only  as  that  is  made  more 
quick  and  tender  to  the  pure  and  good,  more  con- 
stant and  more  vivid  in  its  pure  suggestions,  more 
engaging  by  its  purer  pleasure  to  whatever  is  pure 
and  noble  and  good. 

SPECIAL  APPLICATIONS  OF  THE  LAWS  OF  ^ES- 
THETIC INTERPRETATION  TO  THE  SEVERAL  ARTS. — • 
§  337.    I.   To  Architecture. — The  ques- 
TO  architecture,     tion  we  are  here  to  meet  is  this  :  How 
can  we,  in  proceeding  to  the  contem- 
plation of  a  work  of  architectural  art,  interpret  out 
to  ourselves  its  proper  beauty  best  and  most  per- 
fectly ?     The  general  exposition  that  has  been  made 
of  the  laws  of  aesthetic  interpretation  will  easily 
guide  us  in  our  procedure. 

We  are  first  to  bring  our  aesthetic  sen- 
sl^kytS:  sibility  as  susceptively,  closely,  exclu- 
sively as  possible  into  communication 
with  the  structure.  It  addresses  us  only  through  the 
sense  of  sight ;  and  our  aesthetic  sense  must  ap- 
prehend it  mediately  through  that.  To  what  this 
sense  of  sight  brings  us  we  are  to  surrender  our 
susceptible  nature  that  it  may  fully  engage  us  and 
purely  and  deeply  impress  itself  upon  us.  We 
must  bring  not  a  dead,  motionless  passivity  ;  but 
the  sense  of  a  living,  active  soul,  that  is  awake  and 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  36$ 

on  the  alert,  that  is  free  to  move  here  and  there,  as 
the  object  may  move  us,  and  to  feel  from  every 
part  of  it.  We  are  to  bring  it  as  in  sympathy  ..ith 
the  benignant  design  that  seeks  a  provision  of 
shelter  and  of  comfort  and  also  of  blessing  to  the 
aesthetic  spirit,  that  our  active  sense  may  be  warm 
and  glowing  as  well  as  tender.  We  are  to  bring  in 
also  the  full  measure  of  all  that  intelligence  which 
such  a  work  addresses,  in  respect  of  idea,  material, 
form ;  and  our  moral  nature  should  be  enlisted  with 
our  intelligence,  to  elevate,  quicken,  and  expand  our 
sense.  This  is  our  procedure  regarded  from  the 
subjective  side. 

Turning  now  to  the  object,  we  first 
TthoiL  °bject  as  apprehend  it  as  a  whole  of  such  or  such 

an  outline  and  amplitude,  just  as  it 
pictures  itself  on  the  retina.  Never  dropping 

wholly  this  its  impression  as  a  whole, 

oltC. 

as  the  eye  rests  upon  it,  parts  come 

into  our  regard — site,  and  position,  absolute   and 

relative  to  surrounding  objects  ;  outline 

Outline.  J  . 

in  all   the  particulars  of  vertical  and 

horizontal  figure,  with  those  of  color  and  hue,  and 

then  of  the  several  parts  passing  from 

Color.  t  ii> 

the  more  general  to  the  subordinate, 
and  viewing  each  in  its  individual  figure  and  color, 
as  well  as  relatively  to  the  whole  and  the  other 

parts. 

The  idea  that  has  determined  and 
idea.  shaped  it,  the  ends  of  utility,  of  shelter, 

of  comfort,  of  repose,  and  the  like,  and 
the  more  special  ends  of  domestic,  civil,  religiousi 


366  LAWS   OF   BEAUT  Y 

or  memorial  purpose,  with  the  fitness  to  each  of 
those  ends ;  the  material,  its  adaptation 

Material.  to  its  use,  and  all  the  elements  that 

have  determined  the  selection,  and 

also  entered  into  the  treatment  of  it ;  the  mechan- 
ical design  in  securing  these  economic 

Mechanical  design.  ,  .    ,  ,  ,  ,,  •, 

and  special  ends  ;  the  aesthetic   ends 

through  those  of  utility  and  through  outline,  light 

and  shade  and  color,  as  the  support, 

Esthetic  ends.  1  11^         1^.1  •  *. 

vertical  and  lateral,  the  unity,  con- 
trasts, aesthetic  number  of  parts,  proportion,  sym- 
metry and  harmony  of  parts  ;  the  moral  aspects,  too, 
coloring  the  design  and  work  throughout,  the  power 
and  skill,  the  love  and  patient  care,  the  sound  in- 
telligence which  mark  the  construction.  The  con- 
tinued contemplation,  keeping  ever  the  sensibility 
in  predominant  exercise,  making  all  intelligence 
and  moral  purpose  subservient  and  in  ministry  to 
that,  is  thus  to  be  kept  upon  the  object  as  part  after 
part  presents  itself  to  the  study,  as  it  passes  now  in 
this  direction,  now  in  that,  causing  every  successive 
view  to  quicken  and  fill  the  sensibility.  The  his- 
torical knowledge  of  the  art  affording 
History.  opportunity  for  comparing  and  con- 

trasting and  measuring  may  well  form 
part  of  the  intelligence  which  is  to  feed  the  sen- 
sibility. The  true  taste  will  characteristically  dwell 
most  on  the  excellencies,  turning  rather  from  the 
imperfections  which  enter  and  mar  all  human  work- 
manship. The_critic  may  bring  both  beauties  and 
deformities  into  his  view  ;  the  cynic  revel  in  the 
spots  and  blemishes ;  the  true  aesthetic  soul  will 


SPECIAL  LAWS.  367 

rest  upon  whatever  is  truly  beautiful  there  may  be, 
and  find  a  pure  satisfaction  in  that. 

The  more  predominant  and  character- 
£fndp™!ical  istic  elements  of  architectural  beauty 
are  those  which  are  founded  in  the 
intelligence,  and  are  essentially  mathematical.  The 
principles  of  support  and  of  proportion,  thus,  are 
the  leading  principles  in  architecture.  The  con- 
templation of  this  kind  of  beauty,  therefore,  will 
find  its  most  proper  and  its  most  exalted  and  satis- 
fying returns  when  directed  upon  these  elements 
of  the  art.  Accordingly,  the  mind  most  conversant 
with  the  laws  of  pressure  and  of  cohesion  in  the 
materials  used  in  architecture  and  most  trained  in 
the  relations  of  quantities,  will  rise  to  be  capable  of 
the  highest  aesthetic  enjoyment  from  architecture. 
But  the  rudest  intelligence  has  some  sense  of  these 
mathematical  relations,  and  there  remain  outside  of 
these  elements  manifold  others  to  engage  the  eye 
and  soul  of  every  lover  of  art  and  beauty. 

§  338.  2.  To  Landscape. — In  bringing  the  aes- 
thetic sensibility  to  the  reception  of  the  proper 
beauty  of  landscape,  it  is  obvious  that  while  we 
must  approach  mainly  through  the  sense  of  sight, 
as  in  architecture,  this  sense  is  not  the  only 
avenue.  As  we  have  seen,  the  hearing,  the  smell, 
the  taste,  are  in  a  degree  directly  or  indirectly 
instrumental  to  the  enjoyment  of  land- 
S&diUS!"  scape  beauty.  There  is  call  here  ac- 
cordingly for  a  more  widely  diversified 
sensibility.  There  is  call  so  far  for  a  more  active 
play  of  the  sensibility,  so  that  it  may  take  in  the 


368  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

varying  object,  as  it  offers   itself  at  each   of  its 
several  avenues.     There  is  call,  also, 
Sympathetic.        for  a  warmer,   livelier  sympathy ;  for 
here  not  dead  forms  of  matter  mathe- 
matically measured  and  shaped,  but  the  forms  of 
intelligent  and     organic  life  offer  themselves.    Farther, 
a  more  intelligent  as  well  as  a  higher 
moral  sense  is  required. 

For  the  right  interpretation  of  beauty 
study  of  idea.  in  landscape,  there  is  the  same  pro- 
cedure in  the  study  of  the  object  re- 
quired as  in  architecture.  The  ideas  proper  to  the 
art,  both  economic  and  aesthetic,  are  first  to  be 
present  in  the  mind,  prompting  and  shaping  the 
sensibility.  From  the  material  in  this 
Sanic  iifer.ial~  art,  however,  will  be  derived  the  more 
peculiar  and  characteristic  impressions. 
The  medium  of  revelation  in  landscape  is  pre>- 
dominantly  organic  life.  It  is  what  is  commonly 
called  the  beauty  of  nature,  which  properly  engages 
the  sense  so  far  as  material  is  concerned.  At  least, 
this  is  the  kind  of  beauty  which  the  highest  and 
purest  landscape  aspires  to  reveal.  Chiefly,  al- 
though not  exclusively,  as  we  have  seen,  vegetable 
life  gives  character  to  landscape.  It  is  the  beauty 
of  organic  life  and  growth,  the  beauty  of  flower,  of 
leaf,  of  branch,  of  tree,  of  garden,  of  lawn,  of  field^ 
of  forest,  in  the  relations  in  which  nature  has 
placed  them,  which  is  here  predominant.  And  the 
leading  question  which  the  demand  for  a  right 
interpretation  presents  is :  What  shall  bring  in 
most  of  this  beauty  of  organic  life  into  our  souls  ? 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  369 

Or,  what  amounts  to  the  same  thing,  what  is  the 
peculiar  element  in  organic  life  which  makes  it 
beautiful,  and  which  we  are  to  apprehend  in  order 
to  enjoy  it  most  fully  and  perfectly  ?  To  make  the 
answer  more  intelligible,  we  may  put  the  question 
in  the  form  of  a  still  more  specific  inquiry  :  How  do 
we  apprehend  the  richest  beauty  in  a  single  tree  ? 
The  noble  elm  which  stands  before  my  window, 
with  its  roots  that  heave  up  in  rounded  ridges  the 
turf  and  pavement  above  them,  as  they  swell  out 
to  the  dimensions  needful  to  their  functions  of  sup- 
port and  nutrition,  its  stately  trunk  cased  in  rugged 
bark,  its  sweeping  boughs  branching  off  at  uniform 
angles  and  intervals,  its  intricate  spray  shooting  off 
in  every  direction  to  hold  forth  the  abundant  foliage 
for  freest  ministries  of  air  and  light : — wherein  does 
its  beauty  lie  ?  on  what  precisely  must  the  soul  fix 
its  sense  in  order  most  fully  and  exactly  and  per- 
fectly to  apprehend  its  proper  beauty  ?  We  might 
rest  satisfied  with  the  general  teaching  of  the  poet, 
and  recognizing  it  as  the  revelation  of  a  great 
creative  idea  which  expresses  itself  in  its  diversified 
forms  in  all  nature,  content  ourselves  with  admiring 

••  How  exquisitely  the  individual  mind, 
And  the  progressive  powers  perhaps  no  less, 
Of  the  whole  species,  to  the  external  world 
Is  fitted  ;  and  how  exquisitely,  too, 
The  external  world  is  fitted  to  the  mind." 

But  we  crave  a  more  specific  answer  than  this  of 
the  general  correspondence  of  the  human  soul  to 
the  creative  spirit  speaking  in  nature.  We  ask 
why  any  form  that  exists  is  not  beautiful ;  why  an 


37O  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

elm,  evidently  but  half-rooted,  with  square  trunk, 
with  precisely  horizontal  boughs  scattered  at  ran- 
dom from  the  center  line,  a  spray  and  foliage  dif- 
ferent in  position  and  shape  and  hue,  a  square 
smooth-lined  b]ack  leaf,  should  not  satisfy  an  aes- 
thetic sense  as  well  ?  Why  an  imperfect  tree  in  any 
respect,  imperfect  because  it  was  robbed  of  its 
needed  soil  and  nutriment  of  light  and  warmth  and 
vapor,  or  was  scathed  by  excessive  heat  or  benumbed 
by  the  untimely  frost,  or  was  mutilated  by  axe,  or 
hurricane,  or  other  instrument  of  rude  violence, 
does  not  please  our  taste  as  well  ?  The  answer  is, 
and  the  answer  is  the  only  answer  that  can  be 
given  while  it  is  on  the  deepest  aesthetic  principles 
satisfactory,  that  somehow  or  other,  more  or  less 
imperfectly,  more  or  less  unconsciously,  we  have 
come  to  know  and  to  feel,  that  is  to  know  deeply 
though  imperfectly  as  to  the  grounds  of  our  knowl- 
edge, so  deeply  as  to  move  and  shape  our  sensi- 
bility, that  the  creative  idea  of  a  perfect  organic 
elm-life  could  be  realized  only  with  such  roots,  such 
trunk,  such  spray,  and  foliage.  The  constituent  of 
the  beauty  lies  in  this  or  that  particular  form  and 

shape  because  it  is  the  necessary  form 
why  beautiful?  and  shape  for  the  ideal  of  an  elm  in  the 

creative  mind.  And  just  in  proportion 
as  our  intelligence  is  enlightened  and  informed  as 
to  the  relations  of  the  branch  and  leaf  to  the  perfec- 
tion of  the  tree-life,  the  richer  will  be  its  beauty  to 
us.  If  it  be  asked  :  Were  things  so  constituted  that 
a  black  leaf  would  be  as  fit  for  the  life  of  the  tree, 
would  it  be  beautiful  to  us  ?  the  answer  is  that  the 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  371 

supposition  itself  is  inadmissible,  as  much  so  as  to 
suppose  that  twice  two  should  make  five  ;  for  we 
are  authorized  to  believe  that  there  is  a  like  contra- 
diction in  it,  although  our  minds  cannot  fathom  the 
mysteries  of  creation  quite  so  easily  as  those  of 
mathematical  quantities.  The  supposition  is  im- 
pertinent here  on  the  theory  that  beauty,  as  perfect 
form,  is  revelation  of  idea  in  matter,  since  black 
leaf  matter  as  it  is,  is  incompatible  with  the  idea  of 
elm-life.  The  question  is  tantamount  accordingly 
to  this  :  If  our  minds  and  tastes  were  constituted 
otherwise  than  they  are  in  reference  to  the  realities 
of  ideas  and  matter  in  which  they  act,  would  other 
forms  be  beautiful  ?  The  answer  may  wisely  be 
reserved  till  our  constitutions  and  the  natures  of 
things  around  us  are  thus  changed. 

As  even  the  natural  world,  like  the 
fSte?  °f  de"  moral,  as  if  in  sympathy  with  it  and 
typical  of  it,  has  its  imperfections,  and 
beauty  is  perfect  form,  the  aesthetic  eye  in  scanning 
landscape  as  nature  generally,  should  exclude  so  far 
as  possible  all  the  imperfection  that  unavoidably 
comes  in.  If  trees  are  wrenched  from  their  up- 
rightness by  storm  or  other  rudeness,  if  decay  has 
marred  their  native  symmetry  or  turned  rich-clothed 
limb  into  forbidding  dryness  and  nakedness,  or  if 
other  blot  through  alien  force  has  in  this  or  that 
spot  defaced  the  proper  beauty  of  the  scene,  it  is 
the  dictate  of  aesthetic  wisdom  to  exclude  it  from 
the  sense  and  let  it  enter  as  little  as  may  be  into 
the  soul's  vision  and  regard  ;  just  as  the  wise  painter 
of  landscape  excludes  from  his  ideal  any  feature  in 


3/2  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

the  real  scene  that  has  suggested  his  ideal  which 
does  not  help  out  at  least  by  contrast  the  perfect 
form  he  would  design. 

§  339-     3-    To  Sctdpture. — The  beauty 

Study   of  sculp-     *    "*  ,    .  •       r  i     ,/ 

ture,  as  free    oi  sculpture  is  tree  beauty ;  and  the 

beauty.  . 

aesthetic  contemplation  regards  the 
pure  form  for  its  own  sake.  Not  to  be  instructed* 
not  to  be  benefited  in  any  way  except  by  being 
impressed,  is  the  normal  effect  of  all  art,  so  far  as 
free  or  purely  aesthetic.  The  critical  schools  have 
long  accepted  the  teaching  that  free  beauty  is  with- 
out all  interest — that  the  sentiment  of  the  beautiful 
is  not  a  want,  but  is  wholly  disinterested,  without 
indicating  the  grounds  or  very  sharply  defining  the 
meaning.  If  some  philosophers  have  found  the 
true  effect  of  all  free  art  in  pleasure,  it  is  only 
because  their  erroneous  philosophy  has  failed  to 
distinguish  impression  on  the  sensibility  from  the 
natural  pleasure  which  is  connected  with  such 
impression,  and  which  consequently  makes  all  feel- 
ing to  be  pleasure  or  pain.  Or  they  have  illogic- 
ally  inferred  from  the  fact  that  perfect  beauty,  like 
perfect  truth,  must  ever  give  pleasure  to  the  appre- 
hension, that  therefore  the  beautiful  is  nothing  else 
but  the  pleasing.  The  true  view  is,  that  free  art  pro- 
poses simply  to  impress  its  ideal  most  perfectly  on 
the  aesthetic  sensibility.  Other  effects,  as  those  of 
pleasure,  instruction,  culture,  are  consequential,  and 
are  not  its  immediate  aim.  That  the  work  pleases 
is  evidence  of  its  success,  the  pleasure  being  but 
the  satisfaction  of  the  aesthetic  sensibility. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  3/3 

Sculpture  addresses  the  aesthetic 
Jo™t™fviewst>s  sensibility  through  outline  and  light 
and  shadow.  In  order  to  its  proper 
interpretation,  therefore,  the  eye  must  regard  it 
from  the  sculptor's  standpoint,  that  it  may  receive 
the  same  effect  of  figure  and  of  light  and  shadow 
which  he  purposed.  The  highest  product  of  sculp- 
ture is  the  revelation  of  the  human  spirit  and  char- 
acter. But  the  expression  of  the  features  varies 
with  the  direction  from  which  they  are  studied.  A 
photograph,  although  exact  as  the  rays  of  light,  may 
be  almost  expressionless,  or  express  almost  opposite 
characteristics,  according  as  the  rays  fall  directly  on 
this  or  on  that  feature.  To  read  a  statue  right,  the 
eye  must  find  its  true  position  for  observing. 

In  apprehending  the  idea  it  is  obvi- 
rchinac1ergence  ous  the  sensibility  must  be  intelligent 
of  the  character  represented.  It  can 
not  be  rightly  impressed  by  an  Apollo  or  a  Venus 
without  knowing  what  characters  these  are.  The 
fuller  and  clearer  this  intelligence  of  the  idea  in  the 
aesthetic  sense,  the  fuller  and  richer  will  be  the 
interpretation. 

To  a  certain  extent,  this  intelligence 
or  material  of  the  material  will  help  the  interpre- 
tation ;  for  marble  and  metal  express 
very  differently  from  each  other  as  well  as  from 
native  flesh.  Certainly  the  skill  of  the  artist,  which 
enters  largely  in  all  aesthetic  effect  as  a  distinct  ele- 
ment, cannot  well  be  estimated  or  felt  without  such 
intelligence. 


3/4  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

As  no  true   art   is  mere  copy,  the 
fomJbSuT"    question  recurs  here  that  emerged  in 
the  interpretation  of  landscape — why 
are  certain  forms  necessary  for  art  ?     Why  do  we 
recognize    such    a   shape    as    beautiful    and    not 
another?     The   answer   is  as   before — there  is  a 
relationship  between  rational  life  and  the  organic 
life   such   that   the  former   may  have  its  natural 
expression  in  the  latter ;  such  that  any  particular 
modification   of  the   former   demands  for  its   full 
expression  and  realization  a  corresponding  modifi- 
cation of  the  latter  ;  such  that  an  Apollo  cannot  be 
realized  in  the  muscular  shaping  of  a  Venus-face  ; 
such  that  we  are  able,  through  a  knowledge  some 
way  acquired,  to  identify  this  shape  as  a  perfect  ex- 
pression of  one  character — of  intellectual  strength 
and  symmetry  ;  and  that  shape  as  a  perfect  expres- 
sion of  another  character — of  tender  sensibility  and 
affection.     The  organic  conformation  of  a  bird  or  of 
a  beast  is  different  from  that  of  man.     What  is  a 
beautiful  shaping  of  force  and  majesty  in  a  lion  is 
not  a  beautiful  shaping  of  human  force  and  majesty. 
The   beauty  is  not  in  the  organization   itself  as 
organization  ;    that    which    Schiller    denominates 
architectonic  beauty  is  not  in  any  mere  geometrical 
dimensions  or  relations  ;  but  the  organization  be- 
comes beautiful  as  it  is  the  perfect  expression  or 
realization  of  the  idea — the  animal  or  the  human. 
The  essence  of  beauty  lies  in  this  relation  between 
the  idea  and  the  matter.     The  sensibility  in  receiv- 
ing plastic  form  must  intelligently  apprehend  the 
fitness  of  the  matter  to  the  ideal  which  it  reveals. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  375 

The  artist  feels  the  necessity  of  long  and  close  and 
careful  study  of  the  human  anatomy,  in  its  manifold 
modifications  by  age,  sex,  disposition,  pursuit,  cul- 
ture, in  order  to  express  rightly  his  ideals ;  the 
observer,  to  catch  the  full  power  of  his  skill,  needs 
something  of  the  same  intelligence  which  this 
patient  study  gives. 

Summarily,  then,  for  the  aesthetic  •  interpretation 
of  sculpture,  the  sensibility,  susceptible,  quick, 
sympathetic,  intelligent,  and  morally  disposed,  must 
reach  its  object  through  the  vision  directed  from  the 
proper  standpoint,  and  receive  successively  element 
by  element — ideal,  matter,  embodiment  with  all 
rendering  grace  and  skill — into  one  whole  of  im- 
pression. The  peculiar  characteristic  of  art  inter- 
pretation here,  in  the  highest  department  of  the  art 
at  least,  is  the  apprehension  of  the  rational  spirit 
and  character  in  its  manifold  modifications  as  they 
are  realized  in  the  human  organization. 

§  340.  4.  To  Painting. — This  art  makes  its 
appeal  to  the  sensibility  through  the  organ  of  sight 
like  sculpture,  but  adds  to  outline  and  shadow  not 
only  a  deeper,  stronger  tone,  but  the  new  medium  of 
color.  Its  address  is  more  direct  to  the  heart 
accordingly.  It  demands  the  same  accurate  adjust- 
ment of  the  eye,  that  the  light  may  come  to  it  from 
the  points  which  the  artist  designed  to  be  more 
prominent ;  the  same  holding  of  the  aesthetic  sensi- 
bility to  the  constituent  elements  of  idea,  of  shading 
and  coloring,  and  of  rendering  in  such  way  that 
all  the  artist  has  put  upon  his  canvas  may  enter 
into  the  sense,  and  form  one  single  image  there, 


376  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

which  shall  be  the  full  and  exact  reflection  of  what 
is  studied.  In  the  highest  department  of  the  art — 
historical  painting — in  which  not  human  character 
in  its  fixed  and  unrelated  features  is  the  proper  sub- 
ject, but  human  achievement  in  related  event  and 

action,  there  is  a  higher  call  for  a 
Sympathy.  sympathetic  sense,  and  also  a  sense 

more  deeply  and  decidedly  moved  in 
the  moral  nature  rightly  disposed.  The  grouping 

of  objects,  which  enters  here,  makes 

Intelligence.  .  T  i  1^1- 

its  corresponding  demand  on  the  in- 
telligent  sense.     The  proper  artistic   skill,   more- 
over, in  the  artist  invites  a  closer  and 
study  of  artistic    mQK  particuiar  study.     The  grace  not 

only  in  outlining,  as  in  sculpture,  but 
in  blending  as  well  as  selecting  colors,  enters  largely 
into  the  proper  beauty  of  a  painting. 

§  341.  5.  To  Music. — The  art  of  music  has  for 
its  characteristics  that  it  expresses  mainly  feeling, 
and  that  its  organ  is  the  ear.  In  interpreting 
music  there  is,  farther,  the  peculiarity  that  it  is  only 
for  the  moment — it  passes  and  is  gone  —  the  con- 
templation must  engage  it  at  the  instant  and  as 
it  flits  along.  Further,  feeling  in  itself  having  but 
the  two  modifications  in  quality  of  joyous  and  sor- 
rowful, and  the  few  of  degree  as  of  slow  and  quick, 
lax  and  intense,  suffers  manifold  modifications  from 
the  objects  which  awaken  it.  These  peculiarities 
guide  us  to  the  proper  course  for  easy  and  right 
interpretation  of  music  when  it  varies  from  that  to 
be  followed  in  the  case  of  the  arts  before  considered. 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  3/7 

As   in  the  other  arts    the   organ  of 

sense,  here  the  ear   must  be  wholly 

enlisted,  and  to  the  exclusion  of  other 
occupations.  There  is  a  training  for  the  ear  as 
well  as  for  the  eye,  which  is  only  by  practice.  As 
the  sharp,  ready  sight  comes  from  long  use,  so  the 
quick,  accurate,  discriminating  ear  is  the  result 
only  of  long  and  right  exercise. 

In  music,  from  its  fleeting,  transient 
wakefai.  character,  the  sensibility  more  needs 

to  be  awake  and  active  than  in  the 
other  arts.  From  the  beginning  to  the  end,  each 
movement  must  be  caught,  or  the  whole  effect  is 
mutilated  or  destroyed.  What  escapes  cannot  be 
recovered,  as  in  a  new  observation  of  a  building,  or 
a  painting.  To  lose  thus  a  passage  or  a  part  would 
be  like  having  the  eye  blinded  to  a  member  of  a 
group  or  a  leading  color  in  a  painting,  or  a  limb  or 
a  feature  in  a  statue. 

The  sympathy  is  here  more  directly 
Sympathetic.  engaged  than  elsewhere ;  for  feeling 

here  comes  immediately  to  feeling  and 
heart  speaks  to  heart.  Whatever  breaks  or  hinders 
this  sympathy  or  play  of  soul  mars  the  effect  of 
music. 

The  range  of  intelligence  requisite  in 
intelligent.  musical  interpretation  will  depend 

mainly  on  the  professional  skill  and  on 
the  foreign  aid  derived  from  operatic  libretti  or  from 
the  lyric  songs  to  which  the  music  is  adapted. 
There  are  certain  hints  to  be  taken  from  the  science 
of  musical  art,  which  will  be  helpful  in  obtaining 


3/8  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

the  full  aesthetic  enjoyment  from  music.  To  pass 
over  all  that  interest  and  pleasure  which  a  pro- 
fessional musician  realizes  from  his  ready  notice 
of  the  skill  of  the  composer  or  the  performer  in 
surmounting  difficulties  or  achieving  masterstrokes 
of  art,  there  is  much  help  to  be  derived  from  a 
knowledge  of  the  principles  that  lie  at  the  founda- 
tion of  all  that  is  excellent  in  musical  art.  All 
music  expresses  a  mood  of  feeling.  To  enjoy  music 
properly,  therefore,  the  hearer  must  needs  allow 
his  sensibility  to  be  determined  into  that  mood  ; 
and  the  general  character  of  the  mood  which  a 
given  musical  composition  is  to  express,  is  or  should 
be  indicated  in  the  few  notes  that  express  the 
theme.  Then  the  theme  extends  itself  into  the 
melody,  which  should  be  fully  apprehended.  On 
the  melody  is  built  the  harmony,  the  adaptation  of 
musical  consonances  or  chords  to  the  melody. 
The  introduction  of  the  fugues,  their  character 
and  relations,  invite  a  separate  notice.  And 
then  is  to  be  apprehended  the  general  succes- 
sion of  the  movements  characterized  in  respect 
to  the  joyous  or  plaintive,  the  quick  or  slow,  the 
forceful  or  gentle,  the  allegro,  the  andante,  the  largo, 
the  playful,  the  lively  and  quick.  Even  the  unpro- 
fessional hearer  of  music  will  find  his  sense  of  its 
beauty  greatly  enhanced  as  he  quickens  and  guides 
his  sensibility  by  this  underlying  intelligence  of  the 
nature  and  import  of  music.  One  constituent  after 
another  he  will  be  enabled  to  take  up  and  weave 
into  the  one  common  woof  of  effect.  Especially 
will  he  be  able  to  recognize  more  readily  the  con- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  3/9 

stituent  to  which  the  artist  designed  to  give  the 
chief  effect,  and  to  surrender  himself  more  to  it — to 
the  air,  or  whichever  of  the.  other  parts  rises  here 
or  there  above  the  rest,  to  the  modulation  or  other 
change  in  the  movement.  His  care  should  be  not 
to  allow  himself  to  be  drawn  into  an  intellectual 
study.  This  is  to  defeat  the  very  design  of  music, 
which  is  for  the  feeling  alone  —  for  the  sensibility, 
between  which  and  the  sound  that  engages  the  ear 
nothing  must  be  permitted  to  intervene.  The 
intelligence  must  only  minister  to  the  sense,  not 
dethrone  or  master  it. 

§  342.  6.  To  Poetry. — In  directing  the  aesthetic 
sensibility  how  best  to  receive  the  addresses  of  this 
art  of  arts,  the  best  method  will  be  to  follow  the 
order  of  the  three  constituent  elements  of  all  dis- 
course— the  subject  or  idea,  the  word  as  a  sound, 
and  the  word  as  symbol. 

In  regard  to  the  subject  of  a  poet- 
study  of  subject,  ical  composition,  the  idea  which  runs 
through  it  and  is  revealed  in  it,  very 
obviously  the  intelligence  must  be  prominently 
enlisted  for  any  proper  sense  of  its  beauty.  Gener- 
ally the  highest  order  of  poetry  calls  for  the  highest 
order  of  intellectual  culture.  So  far  from  the  doc- 
trine being  sound  that  the  best  poetry  is  that  which 
best  holds  the  popular  mind  in  the  sense  of  holding 
the  uncultivated  and  the  unintelligent  mass,  the 
contrary  is  just  the  truth.  The  best  poetry  is  that 
which  best  holds  the  most  cultured  soul.  This 
implies  that  good  poetry,  while  it  must  be  for  all 
ages,  all  nations,  all  conditions,  yet  can  be  for  them 


LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

only  as  there  is  intelligence  in  them.  The  child, 
the  ignorant,  the  undeveloped  mind,  is  enraptured 
with  Mother  Goose's  Melodies — with  jingling  non- 
sense. The  illiterate  mass  delights  in  gross  carica- 
ture, in  uncouth  tales  of  the  wild  and  monstrous. 
Events  of  world-wide  significance,  truths  of  eternal 
moment,  sentiments  of  the  .most  etherial  nature,  it 
has  no  intelligent  sense  to  apprehend.  The  call  for 
intelligence  in  order  to  the  aesthetic  interpretation 
of  poetry  is  heard  everywhere.  It  helps  this  inter- 
pretation to  know  the  poet  himself,  his  age  and 
times,  his  genius,  his  culture,  his  aim  and  object  in 
writing.  It  helps  it  to  know  the  relations  of  his 
subject,  whatever  its  character,  historical  or  intel- 
lectual, event  or  truth ;  as  also  the  character  and 
relations  of  each  individual  personage  and  each 
subordinate  truth  or  sentiment.  It  helps  to  the 
full  sense  of  a  poem  that  the  sensibility  be  informed 
by  a  full  intelligence  of  all  that  pertains  to  the  sub- 
ject or  idea  in  its  character  and  specific  develop- 
ment. A  good  poem  grows  in  beauty  as  knowledge 
and  culture  grow. 

Again,  the  full  aesthetic  effect  of  poe- 
Ofwor4  try,  as  of  all  discourse,  is  conditioned 

upon  the  right  apprehension  of  the 
word  as  the  matter  in  which  poetry  and  discourse 
reveal  idea.  The  word,  as  we  have  seen,  is  sound 
filled  with  thought.  It  has  a  sound  side,  a  thought 
side,  and  a  proper  symbol  or  imagery  side,  when  it 
is  correctly  analyzed.  We  may  dismiss  here  the 
consideration  of  the  thought-aspect  of  a  word,  as 
the  principles  guiding  to  the  right  apprehension  are 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  $81 

the  same  as  those  which  pertain  to  the  apprehension 
of  idea  or  subject  generally.  Never  should  it  be 
forgotten,  however,  that  the  word,  as  symbol  of 
thought,  has  a  life  and  growth  which  reach  the 
thought ;  that  consequently  the  mean- 
its  mean-ng.  ing  or  significance  of  a  word  has  a  his- 
tory as  well  as  the  sound  or  the  let- 
ters— the  orthoepy  or  the  orthography.  He  who 
has  this  notion  of  the  nature  of  a  word  will  ever 
enjoy  most  in  discourse  and  poetry. 

The  word  is  a  sound  ;  discourse  and 
nature."1 "  * "  °  * l  poetry  are  word-sounds  in  combination. 
As  such  they  characteristically  engage 
the  aesthetic  sense.  Every  word,  as  we  have  seen, 
has  a  true  musical  nature.  Poetry,  which  in  its 
normal  form,  is  uttered,  and  must,  to  be  enjoyed 
perfectly,  when  read  silently,  be  rendered  by  the 
reader  into  imaginary  sound,  is  thus  true  music. 
The  poetic  utterance  goes  out  characterized  by  all 
the  proper  musical  marks  of  sound.  It  walks  along 
in  simple  tone-steps,  with  simple  tone-slides  or 
tone-skips  up  or  down,  as  the  feeling  or  the  turn  of 
the  thought  requires,  or  it  breaks  in  tender  feeling, 
into  semitonic  or  minor  gradations,  or  in  intenser 
expression  mounts  through  thirds,  fifths,  or  oc- 
taves, or  prolongs  itself  into  combinations  of  tone- 
slides  as  the  varying  sentiment  may  prompt.  The 
aesthetic  effect  of  all  poetry,  as  of  all  discourse, 
consists  in  a  great  part  in  the  vocal  word,  so  that 
its  charm  will  depend  not  a  little  on  the  power  of 
the  voice  to  give  in  the  utterance  the  proper  musi- 
cal movements  to  the  several  words. 


382  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

But  we  meet  another  oral  element 
of  Rhythm.  more  peculiar  to  poetry,  although  not 

foreign  to  all  human  discourse,  rhythm 
If  there  be  poetry  without  what  is  commonly 
understood  as  poetical  rhythm — a  regular  recurrence 
of  poetic  feet — such  poetry  for  instance  as  the  re- 
ceived English  version  of  the  Psalms,  it  is  not 
poetry  in  its  highest  or  richest  form  of  diction. 
Poetry,  generally  and  well  nigh  characteristically, 
has  rhythm.  Its  verbal  body  is  rhythmical.  There 
can  be  no  true  aesthetic  interpretation  of  a  poem 
except  as  this  rhythm  is  apprehended.  And  it  is 
worthy  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  ear  requires  and 
is  susceptible  of  training  in  its  sensibility  to 
rhythm.  The  true  poet  speaks  in  rhythm. 

If  he  has  the  mastery  of  rhythm,  as  every  true 
poet  has,  his  thoughts  and  his  feelings  —  his  poetic 
mood  determines  the  rhythm,  and  makes  it  an  exact 
embodiment,  conforming  to  itself  in  its  successive 
variations  the  rhythmical  body  throughout.  It  is  of 
course  impossible  to  apprehend  the  mood  of  the 
poet,  except  as  the  rhythm  is  apprehended.  To  in- 
terpret poetry  aesthetically,  therefore,  it  is  neces- 
sary that  the  nature  of  rhythm,  the  forms  of  rhythm, 
the  expression  peculiar  to  the  different  kinds  of 
rhythm,  be  understood ;  that  the  sensibility  be 
quickened  and  filled  by  a  proper  rhythmical  intelli- 
gence. 

Not  only  is  this  quick  and  susceptible  sense  of 
rhythm  in  itself  requisite,  but  also  its  relation  to 
thought  must  be  apprehended  so  as  to  be  aesthetic- 
ally felt.  Proper  beauty  implies  an  exact  corres- 


SPECIAL    LAWS.  383 

pondence  between  the  idea  and  the  matter.  In  re- 
spect to  poetical  rhythm  it  implies  an  exact  com- 
mensurability  between  the  thought  and  the  divis- 
ions of  the  rhythm.  If  the  thought  be  direct, 
simple,  sententious,  like  Pope's,  the  verse  will  end 
the  thought ;  and  the  caesural  pause,  the  pause 
which  the  termination  of  the  thought  or  of  a  part 
of  it  requires  in  a  right  reading,  will  frequently 
occur ;  the  rhythm  will  be  broken.  If  the  thought 
be  prolonged,  more  or  less  involved,  expressing 
manifold  modifications,  like  Cowper's,  the  rhythm 
will  continue  through  the  verse,  or  through  suc- 
cessive verses  unbroken.  The  beauty  of  the 
broken  rhythm  of  Pope  is  one  ;  that  of  Cowper  is 
another ;  and  the  difference  must  be  apprehended  ;.n 
order  to  a  right  aesthetic  interpretation  of  the 
poetry  of  each. 

Moreover,  there  is,  as  we  have  seen, 
Of  Melody.  a  poetic  melody — a  construction  of  the 

thought  and  of  the  sentence  in  har- 
mony with  the  rhythm,  which,  in  the  right  pro- 
nunciation so  as  to  show  the  relations  of  the  pa.~ts 
of  the  thought  to  one  another,  shall  allow  the  varia- 
tions in  pitch  to  be  in  accordance  with  the  principles 
of  music.  It  is  one  of  the  aesthetic  elements  of  all 
poetry.  The  sententiousness  of  Pope  admits  it 
but  slightly  ;  but  the  rich,  varied  thought  of  Cowper 
allowing  and  prompting  it,  his  poetry  owes  a  chief 
part  of  its  charm  to  it.  Its  effect  may  be  felt 
blindly,  just  as  music  has  a  certain  pleasing  effect 
on  the  dullest  mind.  But  its  full  power  can  be 
experienced  only  by  a  sensibility  enlightened  bv 


384  LAWS    OF    BEAUTY. 

some  intelligence  of  the  nature  and  force  of  poetic 
melody. 

A  like  observance  of  the  harmony  in 
of  Harmony.        poetry  is  as  obviously  necessary.     To 

it  the  ear  must  be  kept  equally  open. 
Such  are  the  conditions  of  a  full  aesthetic  inter- 
pretation of  poetry  given  by  the  sound-side  of  the 
word  and  of  language.  The  sense  must  be  prepared 
to  receive  the  music  of  oral  utterance  in  respect 
both  to  particular  words  and  also  to  poetic  rhythm 
and  melody  and  harmony,  which  belongs  to  words 
in  combination. 

Once  more,  for  the  full  aesthetic  en- 
of  symbol.  joyment  of  poetry,  the  sense  must  be 
brought  to  take  in  the  full  beauty  of 
the  word  as  symbol  —  the  full  charm  and  power  of 
rhetorical  imagery.  What  demand  is  here  made 
upon  the  intelligence  in  the  aesthetic  sensibility  in 
order  that  the  meaning  and  fitness  of  the  symbol  or 
imagery  may  be  apprehended,  it  is  unnecessary  to 
indicate  in  prolonged  detail.  The  object,  the  event, 
or  che  truth,  which  constitutes  the  symbol  or  image 
of  the  poet's  revelation,  must  obviously  be  known, 
or  this  great  element  of  poetic  beauty  is  expression- 
less. How  the  Paradise  Lost  loses  in  its  true 
charms  on  the  mind  ignorant  of  its  rich  classical 
allusions  and  imagery !  So  the  poetry  of  the 
Hebrew  scriptures  is  comparatively  tame  to  one 
who  has  no  idea  of  oriental  scenery.  The  literature 
oi  a  nation,  that  properly  clothes  itself  in  the 
national  life,  its  history,  its  customs,  its  physical 
peculiarities,  loses  a  great  part  of  its  beauty  to  a 
stranger's  mind. 


SPECIAL  LAWS.  385 

But  above  this  intelligence  of  the  object,  which 
is  taken  to  symbolize  or  image  the  thought,  there 
is  the  proper  poetic  work  of  embodying  it,  which 
should  engage  the  aesthetic  sense.  The  beauty  of 
poetry  lies  more  characteristically  in  the  skill  and 
grace  with  which  the  idea  is  thus  symbolized  or 
imaged.  It  is  enough  here  simply  to  indicate  this 
as  one  of  the  particular  elements  to  which  the 
aesthetic  sense  is  to  be  addressed  ;  and  its  proper 
and  full  effect  to  be  gathered  up  into  the  one  total 
impression  formed  by  the  combination  of  all  tbe 
elements  of  beauty.  All  art,  it  has  justly  been 
observed,  is  poetic  ;  and,  as  justly  may  it  be  said, 
all  poetry  is  allegorical.  It  is  always  putting 
thought  or  idea  into  other  than  its  native  form  ; 
always  uttering  in  another  speech-form ;  always 
allegorizing.  ./Esthetic  interpretation  in  all  art 
is  essentially  interpretation  of  the  embodiment  by 
the  artist  of  his  idea,  gained  in  whatever  way,  in  a 
new,  original  kind  or  form  of  matter.  The  inter- 
pretation of  poetic  symbolism  and  imagery  is  of 
the  nature  of  the  interpretation  of  all  art.  Only  a 
more  especial  draft,  perhaps,  is  made  upon  the 
intelligence  in  poetry  than  elsewhere  in  art.  This 
one  caution  and  reminder  is  consequently  more 
fitting  and  needful  here :  that  the  aesthetic  inter- 
pretation is  by  the  sensibility  as  the  immediate 
organ  ;  that  hence  the  intellect  must  be  kept 
subordinate  and  subservient  to  the  sense  ;  lest  the 
contemplation  of  poetry  be  not  aesthetic,  not  such 
as  saves  the  experience  of  beauty,  but  character- 
istically intellectual  or  critical  ;  for  the  sake  of. 
knowledge  or  of  trial,  in  order  to  approve  or  condemn. 


BOOK    IV. 

RELATIONS   OF  BEAUTY. 


CHAPTER   I. 

INTRODUCTORY  VIEW. 

§  343.  We  have  now  in  the  several 
Method  steps  of  our  progress  ascertained  the 

Properties  of  Beauty ;  we  have  dis- 
tinguished the  Kinds  of  Beauty ;  and  have  deter- 
mined the  Laws  of  Beauty,  whether  they  respect 
its  production  or  interpretation.  The  fourth  step, 
as  at  the  start  was  indicated,  still  remains  —  to 
consider  the  Relations  of  Beauty. 

A  two-fold  distinction  at  once  presents  itself. 
We  have  on  the  one  hand  the  beautiful  in  itself ; 
and  we  have  on  the  other  hand  the  science  of  the 
beautiful.  We  have  in  other  words  the  two  depart- 
ments of  (i)  the  relations  of  Beauty  ;  and  (2)  the 
relations  of  ^Esthetics,  or  the  science  of  beauty. 

Moreover,  we  have  a  two-fold  inquiry  to  con- 
sider in  regard  to  each  of  these  two  divisions:  (r) 
the  relations  to  coordinates ;  and  (2)  the  relations 
to  ends — its  uses  ;  the  where  and  the  whei&utv 
both  of  beauty  and  of  the  science  of  beauty. 


INTRODUCTORY   VIEW.  387 

We  have,  thus,  the  four  particulars  of  study  in- 
dicated to  us,  which  we  shall  proceed  to  treat  in 
separate  chapters  : — 

I.  The  Relations  of  the  Beautiful  to  the  True 
and  the  Good. 

II.  The  Relations  of  ^Estnetics  to  Logic  and 
Ethics. 

III.  The  Uses  of  Beauty. 

IV.  The  Uses  of  Esthetics. 


388  RELATIONS   OF   BEAUTY. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  RELATIONS  OF  THE  BEAUTIFUL  TO  THE  TRUE 
AND  THE  GOOD. 

§  344.  We  are  first  to  seek  the  place 
Place.  of  the  beautiful  —  its  geographical 

position  relatively  to  other  ideas  in 
the  same  province  of  truth.  From  the  earliest 
dawn  of  science  to  the  present  time  there  has  been 
one  universally  accepted  answer  to  this  inquiry. 

The  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good 
The  three  ideas,  have  been  accepted  as  occupying  the 

same  field  of  truth,  as  completely 
filling  it  —  each  the  complementary  and  the  coordi- 
nate of  the  others. 

They  have  been  denominated  the  three  compre- 
hensive ideas.  They  are  the  ideas  of  the  true,  the 
beautiful,  and  the  good. 

These  three  ideas  have  ever  been  viewed  as 
standing  in  a  very  close  not  to  say  vital  relationship 
to  one  another.  Philosophers  and  poets  have  spoken 
of  them  as  being  but  the  same  thing  in  essence. 
Cousin  speaks  of  beauty  as  "blended  with  the  true 
and  the  good  in  one,  the  same  unity.  If  the  true, 
the  good,  and  the  beautiful  appear  to  be  distinct  and 
separate,  it  is  not  because  they  are  so  in  fact,  but 
because  they  are  given  forth  [with  different  relative 


TA  THE  TRUE  AND  THE  GOOD.       389 

prominence]    in   different   objects."     In   the  same 
spirit  Akenside  speaks : — 

Truth  and  good  are  one, 
And  beauty  dwells  in  them,  and  they  in  her, 
With  like  participation. 

§  345.  Each  of  the  three  has  its  oppo- 
ugiy,  the'Sbad.the  s^te  or  contrary ;  and  each  is  recognized 

as  of  manifold  gradations  according  as 
each  is  encroached  upon  by  its  opposite  or  mingled 
with  it.  The  true  has  for  its  opposite  the  false : 
the  beautiful,  the  ugly ;  the  good,  the  bad.  The 
false,  the  ugly,  and  the  bad  stand  in  the  same  rela- 
tion to  one  another  as  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and 
the  good.  The  interminglings  of  each  with  its  op- 
posite give  us  respectively  the  imperfectly  true,  the 
imperfectly  beautiful,  the  imperfectly  good.  In  some 
objects  this  intermingling  is  so  equal  that  they  be- 
come so  to  speak  indifferent.  We  meet  objects  that 
we  characterize  as  having  no  truth  in  them ;  or  as 
having  no  beauty,  or  no  goodness,  although  not 
positively  false,  or  ugly,  or  bad. 

We  have  recognized  as  an  essential  element  in 
all  beauty,  idea — a  form  of  mind  or  of  spirit;  some 
specific  determination  of  spiritual  activity,  whether 
of  intelligence,  of  feeling,  or  of  purpose.  So  it  is 
in  all  truth.  There  is  in  whatever  is  true,  something 
which  is  received  in  this  relation — an  idea,  here 
called  a  subject  recognized  as  having  some  attribute 
belonging  to  it.  It  is  the  same  with  all  that  is 
poor!.  There  is  a  mind,  a  spirit  in  all  that  we 
regard  as  good  or  bad.  In  every  thing  good,  there 
is  a  form  of  mind,  a  specific  determination  of  spirit- 


39°  RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 

ual  activity  —  an  idea.  There  is  thus  in  the  true, 
the  beautiful,  the  good,  in  each  alike,  idea  as  an* 
essential  element. 

§  346.    Moreover  the   same  object  is 
Phases  of  the    characterized  as  true,  or  beautiful,  or 

good,  according  as  we  view  it.  Here 
before  my  eye,  is  a  certain  thing.  It  is  oval  in  out- 
line ;  it  is  thin  like  paper  ;  it  is  green  in  hue  ;  it  is 
coursed  with  regular  hollow  veins  running  out  at 
regular  angles  from  a  central  stem ;  it  is  made  up 
of  a  multitude  of  little  vessels  connected  with  all 
the  veins  and  veinlets  and  filling  out  the  whole  out- 
line. I  say  it  is  a  true  leaf.  It  is  true  because  of 
it  I  can  say  it  is  oval,  thin,  green,  veined,  cellular: — 
I  recognize  these  attributes  as  belonging  to  it 
This  is  my  idea  of  a  leaf — an  object  having  the 
attributes  named,  others  perhaps.  My  idea  is  true 
in  so  far  as  I  regard  it  in  this  relation  of  something 
having  certain  attributes  ;  in  so  far  as  I  regaid  it 
in  itself — in  its  relations  as  a  whole  to  its  several 
parts.  Or  if  I  take  a  part  of  this  object,  a  vein,  it 
is  a  true  vein  to  me  in  so  far  as  I  regard  it  as  a 
tube  conveying  sap  between  the  central  stem 
and  the  cells ;  in  so  far  as  I  regard  it  and  its  rela- 
tions not  only  to  its  own  parts  as  tubular,  but 
also  in  its  relations  to  other  parts  of  the  same  leaf- 
whole —  the  central  stem  and  the  cells.  All  my 
apprehension  of  this  object  in  this  way,  all  my 
experience  of  the  leaf  in  its  relations  of  subject  and 
attributes,  that  is  in  its  relations  as  a  whole  to  its 
own  parts,  or  as  a  part  of  a  larger  \vhoie  to  the 
other  parts  of  the  same  whole,  is  an  apprehension, 


TO  THE  TRUE  AND  THE  GOOD. 

an  experience  of  the  true.  It  is  a  state  or  act  of  the 
intelligence,  a  knowledge  or  a  cognition.  If  indeed 
I  recognize  the  leaf  in  this  interior  relation  of  a 
certain  thing  with  attributes  erroneously,  ascribing 
to  it  an  attribute  not  belonging  to  it,  I  have  a  false 
idea  of  it.  My  experience  is  in  the  same  realm  of 
intelligence — of  the  true  ;  but  it  is  the  opposite  of 
perfect. 

But  I  may  take  this  object,  this  leaf  into  my 
experience  in  quite  another  way.  I  drop  out  of  my 
regard  these  relations  of  subject  and  attribute.  I 
contemplate  the  leaf  only  as  a  form  in  which  an 
idea  is  revealed  to  me.  The  divine  Former  has 
expressed  so  far  His  idea  of  a  plant-life  ;  this  idea 
has  gone  out  into  this  oval-shaped,  thin,  green, 
veined,  cellular  thing.  It  is  full  of  truth  and  full  of 
goodness,  but  I  regard  these  aspects  only  as  they 
help  out  and  minister  to  my  sense  of  its  form,  of  its 
beauty.  I  resign  myself  to  the  simple  feeling  of  the 
object.  I  could  not  feel  it,  perhaps,  my  sensibility, 
being  in  its  very  essence,  an  intelligent  moral  sensi- 
bility—  I  could  not  receive  it  into  my  experience 
unless  it  were  formed  also  in  intelligence  and  in 
goodness ;  but  it  is  its  form,  its  simple  revelation  of 
the  former  idea  which  now  engages  me.  I  appre- 
hend it  now  as  beautiful  ;  I  have  the  experience  of 
beauty. 

Once  more,  I  may  regard  this  same  object  in  its 
proper  effect  or  end.  I  may  regard  the  design  of 
the  Creator  in  giving  it  being  and  apprehend  it  as 
good — good  as  ministering  to  the  life  of  the  tree 
which  itself  is  designed  in  beneficence  to  bring 


RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 

fruit  or  coolness  to  the  hungry  or  the  weary,  and 
therefore  good  ;  good  in  its  own  parts,  each  min- 
istering to  the  well  being  of  the  others.  Or  more 
exactly,  I  may  apprehend  it  as  good  to  me,  as  work- 
ing joy,  pleasure,  by  its  engaging  my  intelligence 
and  gratifying  my  love  of  the  true,  my  desire  of 
knowing  ;  by  its  engaging  my  sensibility  as  a  per- 
fect form,  as  beautiful  and  gratifying  my  sense  by 
its  pleasing  impressions  ,  or  still  farther,  by  its 
working  directly  in  blessing  upon  me  by  bringing 
food  and  coolness.  I  apprehend  it  now  as  good, 
the  good  comes  into  my  experience. 

Every  object  may  §  347-  We  must  gO  One  Step  further 
as'truefbeaS  StilL  Not  Onl7  ma7  the  leaf'  nOt  °n}Y 

may  this  or  that  selected  object  be 
true,  beautiful,  or  good,  either  and  all  according  as 
it  is  regarded  ;  but  any  object,  every  object  that 
can  come  into  our  experience,  whether  thing,  truth, 
or  event,  is  either  true,  or  beautiful,  or  good  to  us  ac- 
cording as  we  apprehend  it  in  its  relations  of  a  whole 
and  parts,  or  as  a  form,  or  as  producing  effect.  Every 
object  has  each  of  these  characteristics.  By  our 
power  of  abstraction,  of  attending  to  this  or  that  one 
of  its  aspects,  it  may  become  to  us  either.  Some 
objects,  it  is  true,  are  better  fitted  to  engage  the  in- 
telligence, and  so  to  appear  as  true ;  others  to  engage 
the  sensibility,  and  so  to  appear  as  beautiful ;  and 
others  still  to  engage  our  souls  as  natures  blessing 
or  to  be  blessed,  and  so  to  appear  as  good.  It  is 
still  true  that  all  alike  may  appear  to  us  in  either 
aspect,  and  so  shape  our  experience  of  it  as  to  be 
either  to  us.  An  abstract  proposition,  for  example, 


TO  THE  TRUE  AND  THE  GOOD.       393 

is  in  the  form  of  a  truth.  It  prominently  addresses 
and  more  easily  engages  our  intelligence.  We  do 
not  so  readily  apprehend  it  as  beautiful  or  as  good. 
But  yet  it  is  possible  to  regard  it  in  either  of  these 
aspects  ;  and  our  experience  of  it  will  then  be  more 
prominently  and  characteristically  an  admiration  of 
it  as  a  form  in  which  an  idea  is  revealed  in  a  per- 
fect way,  or  as  most  important  in  its  bearing  on  our 
welfare  as  interpreting  to  us  more  or  less  the  world 
which  is  constructed  in  intelligence  around  us.  We 
may  pronounce  the  proposition  bald  which  expresses 
the  law  of  universal  gravitation — that  all  bodies  of 
matter  tend  towards  each  other  in  the  inverse  ratio 
of  the  squares  of  their  distances  from  each  other. 
But  yet  in  another  view  how  sublime  is  this  revela- 
tion of  the  Creator's  great  idea  in  forming  a  material 
universe  !  and  in  another  view  still  how  beneficent, 
how  good  does  this  great  law  appear  to  us  ! 

So,  to  take  another  example  of  a  widely  different 
character,  the  pebble  that  lies  before  our  feet,  while 
we  regard  it  as  a  mere  space-filling  little  body,  with 
no  orderly  outline  to  indicate  that  a  mind  has  been 
present  to  shape  it,  with  no  agreeable  color  to  re- 
veal a  soul  that  has  embraced  and  has  left  upon  it 
the  glow  of  its  warm  embrace,  has  no  beauty  for  us. 
We  either  do  not  notice  it ;  or  we  view  it  only  as  a 
thing  of  utility,  if  not  as  a  cumbrance.  But  let  us 
regard  it,  as  it  is  in  our  power  to  regard  it,  as  a  pro- 
duct of  power,  of  wisdom,  of  love  ;  let  us  read  these 
characters  in  the  locality  which  it  has  chosen,  in  the 
quiet  rest  which  it  maintains,  in  its  internal  struc- 
ture too,  the  harmony,  order,  loving  union  of  its 


394  RELATIONS    OF   BEAUTY. 

parts,  and  it  becomes  to  us  a  thing  of  beauty,  not 
by  virtue  of  mere  accidental  associations  which  we 
throw  around  it,  but  by  virtue  of  its  own  nature  as 
revealed  idea.  There  is  more  of  truth  even  than  of 
poetry  in  the  familiar  lines  of  the  poet : — 

To  me  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears. 

The  universe  around  us  is  thus  full  of  truth,  of 
beauty,  and  of  goodness,  in  a  fuller,  richer  sense  than 
is  sometimes  supposed.  It  is  literally  true  that  there 
is  not  an  object  in  it  with  which  we  can  become 
conversant  that  is  not  alike  true,  beautiful,  and 
good,  in  this  interpretation  of  the  proposition,  that 
each  object  participates  in  this  three-fold  nature 
and  belongs  alike  to  the  nature  of  truth,  beauty 
and  goodness.  It  may  be  false,  it  may  be  ugly,  it 
may  be  bad  ;  it  may  be  partially  true,  partially 
beautiful,  partially  good  ;  but  it  belongs  alike  to 
each  of  these  three  departments  which  respect  our 
three-fold  rational  nature. 

whether  true,  §  34&  It  follows  from  this  view,  in  the 
fcuSteS  first  place,  that  an  object  may  enter  our 
edbyobjectitseif.  experience  more  readily,  either  as  the 

true,  or  as  the  beautiful,  or  as  the  good,  according  to 
its  own  determination  or  character.  As  already  inti- 
mated, a  proposition  more  readily  engages  the  intel- 
ligence ;  we  approach  it  as  a  truth  to  be  known.  A 
fixed  object  in  nature,  a  plant,  a  flower,  a  rainbow 
addresses  more  our  sense  ;  we  apprehend  it  more  as 
a  form  as  beautiful  or  otherwise.  An  action  more 
readily  arrests  our  moral  nature ;  we  regard  its 
Tightness  or  its  goodness. 


TO  THE  TRUE  AND  THE  GOOD.       395 

It  follows  in  the  second  place  that  we 
mlndy  ourown  may  receive  any  given  object  more  into 

our  intelligence,  and  it  will,  whatever  its 
more  prominent  and  characteristic  determination  in 
itself,  appear  to  us  as  true  or  otherwise  ;  or  we  may 
receive  it  simply  into  our  sensibility,  and  it  becomes 
a  thing  of  beauty  to  us  ;  or  we  may  receive  it  as  a 
design  and  effect,  and  it  becomes  to  us  good  or 
otherwise.  We  may  so  vary  our  apprehension  of  the 
same  object  by  simple  purpose,  through  transient  in- 
clination, or  through  settled  habit.  The  philosopher 
thus  politically  looks  upon  the  universe  of  objects 
and  events,  with  the  mere  eye  of  his  intelligence, 
and  experiences  it  only  as  true  or  otherwise.  Each 
object,  each  event,  he  studies  in  its  relations  to  its 
own  parts  or  attributes  or  in  its  relations  as  a  part 
to  other  parts,  and  views  it  as  that  which  in  regard 
to  its  whole  or  any  part,  he  can  identify  as  itself,  as 
true.  The  poet  opens  his  heart  to  the  impressions 
of  things  and  actions,  and  dwells  on  them  as  forms 
fitted  to  impress  or  as  impressing  ;  and  the  uni- 
verse is  to  him  not  a  universe  of  truth,  but  of 
beauty.  He  cares  little  for  the  truth  of  things  ;  he 
disdains  analysis  ;  he  laughs  perhaps  at  philosophy 
except  as  it  ministers  lo  beauty.  He  look's  upon 
the  rainbow  and  yields  his  sense  to  the  free  impres- 
sions that  it  makes  upon  his  soul  as  a  revelation  of 
peace  and  goodwill,  of  wisdom  and  order,  of  power 
and  skill  and  grace.  The  philanthropist  scans  the 
design  and  working  and  effect  of  all  that  appears, 
of  all  that  transpires.  It  is  to  him  right  and  good 
or  otherwise.  Only  as  nothing  can  be  right  and 


39^  RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 

good  which  is  not  true  and  beautiful,  does  he  care 
to  recognize  these  characters  in  what  he  studies. 
The  truth  of  things,  the  beauty  of  things,  he  sinks 
under  the  utility  and  the  morality  of  things. 

§  349.  This  general  view  of  the  rela- 
fro^psSfe1!  tion  between  the  true,  the  beautiful, 

and  the  good,  receives  a  striking  cor- 
roboration  from  the  history  of  psychological  science. 
The  ancient  philosophy  recognized,  as  we  have  said, 
these  three  as  the  all  comprehensive  ideas.  What- 
ever we  can  contemplate  or  experience,  must,  ac- 
cording to  their  teaching,  be  contemplated  or  ex- 
perienced in  one  of  these  three  aspects  or  characters. 
Modern  psychologists  have  recognized  also  three 
departments  of  mind  in  its  relation  to  outward  ob- 
jects—  intelligence,  sensibility,  will.  The  former 
distribution  of  mental  phenomena  will  be  recognized 
as  objective,  the  latter  as  subjective.  Being  both 
sound  and  true,  they  must  be  in  exact  correspond- 
ence with  each  other ;  the  objective  division  must 
exactly  correspond  to  the  subjective ;  that  is,  the 
true  must  correspond  to  the  intelligence,  the  beauti- 
ful to  the  sensibility,  the  good  to  the  will.  And 
the  true,  the  beautiful,  the  good  must  exist  to- 
gether in  the  object  in  the  same  vital  union,  in 
which  the  intelligence,  the  sensibility,  and  the  will 
together  in  the  conscious  subject. 


TO   LOGIC    AND    ETHICS.  397 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   RELATIONS    OF   .ESTHETICS   TO   LOGIC 
AND    ETHICS. 

§  350.  From  the  vital  relationship  of 
Snc?6"16"  the  three  great  ideas  of  the  true,  the 

beautiful,  and  the  good,  we  are  pre- 
pared to  anticipate  a  like  vital  relationship  between 
the  formal  scientific  expositions  of  them — between 
the  sciences  of  the  true,  the  beautiful,  and  the  good. 
This  relationship  we  are  prepared  to  anticipate  will 
discover  itself  in  an  analogous  unfolding  of  the  ele- 
ments that  respectively  enter  into  these  ideas  and 
characterize  them  ;  in  a  reciprocal  determination  of 
the  limits  and  boundaries  of  the  respective  sciences  ; 
in  a  reciprocal  modification  of  the  particular  depart- 
ments in  each  ;  and  generally  in  a  reciprocal  illumi- 
nation and  explicating  light  thrown  by  each  upon 
the  others.  In  truth  it  may  be  safely  presumed 
that  neither  science  can  be  fully  and  truly  ex- 
pounded except  in  the  light  of  the  others. 

§  351.  The  name  of  ^Esthetics,  we 
StfcSSc?"  have  seen,  has  been  given  to  the  science 

of  the  beautiful,  perhaps  we  may  now 
be  disposed  to  admit,  with  a  greater  propriety  and 
fitness  than  Baumgarten  himself  recognized.  Cer- 
tainly we  shall  credit  him  with  a  keener  sagacity  and 


398  RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 

a  nicer  instinct  in  thus  denominating  the  science 
than  some  critics  have  allowed.  It  is  the  science 
of  the  human  sensibility — the  capacity  of  form,  an 
exact  synonym  of  which  we  have  indicated  to  be 
the  passive  imagination,  as  distinguishing  it  from 
its  necessary  correlate — the  active  imagination  or 
the  faculty  of  form.  Beauty  is  perfect  form  ;  and 
the  whole  realm  of  objective  beauty  has  been  de- 
nominated from  the  perfect  in  it. 

We  have  found  in  all  objective  beauty,  in  all  form, 
three  elements  —  idea,  matter,  revelation  of  idea  in 
matter  —  the  last  of  these  being  the  more  vital  and 
essential  element,  yet  necessarily  pre-supposing  the 
others. 

Moreover  we  have  found,  both  in  the  pro- 
duction and  in  the  interpretation  or  reception  of 
form  or  of  beauty,  the  modifying  presence,  indeed 
the  actual  governance  of  the  intelligence  and  of  the 
moral  nature — of  the  true  and  the  good  ;  a  presence 
and  governance  so  vital  and  indispensable,  that  we 
have  found  philosophers  and  critics  on  the  one  hand 
who  have  merged  all  beauty  into  the  expression  of 
some  one  principle  of  the  intelligence,  a  form  of  the 
true,  as  of  unity,  or  variety,  or  of  harmony,  and  on 
the  other  hand,  philosophers  and  critics  who  have 
merged  all  beauty  into  the  expression  of  moral  ideas, 
just  as  we  have  found  other  philosophers  merging 
all  beauty  in  the  one  element  of  idea,  others  in  the 
one  of  matter,  and  others  still  in  a  union  but  only  a 
subjective  not  an  objective  union — a  union  created 
by  the  intelligence,  the  judgment,  or  the  faculty  of 
thought.  The  grand  underlying  truth  in  all  these 


TO    LOGIC    AND    ETHICS.  399 

partial  and  so  far  erroneous  theories  is  that  the  same 
soul  which  experiences  beauty,  experiences  also 
truth  and  goodness.  Its  nature  is  intelligent,  feel- 
ing, moral,  and  in  no  specific  act  or  state,  however 
more  fully  shaped  in  either  direction,  can  it  wholly 
lay  aside  the  other  elements  of  its  being.  If  it  feels, 
it  feels  as  an  intelligent  moral  being  feels,  not  as  a 
blind  irrational  passivity  ;  and  if  it  thinks  or  pur- 
poses, it  carries  into  its  thought  or  its  purpose 
equally  its  feeling  nature. 

But  these  departments  of  the  soul's  activity,  al- 
though in  our  analytic  thought  distinguishable,  are 
ever  shading  into  each  other.  The  sensibility 
grades  itself  into  sentiment  or  intelligent  sense. 
There  are  states  of  mind,  in  other  words,  in  which 
feeling  and  intelligence  both  enter  and  in  like 
or  unlike  proportions.  It  is  the  same  with  the 
moral.  The  true,  the  beautiful,  the  good  intermingle 
in  all  relative  degrees  in  the  object — one  object 
being  as  we  have  noticed,  more  characteristically 
lor  the  understanding,  another  for  the  sensibility, 
another  for  the  moral  nature.  Moreover  in  the  same 
object,  as  we  have  seen,  we  may  recognize  either 
the  true,  or  the  beautiful,  or  the  good,  just  as  in 
harmonized  music  we  may  recognize  either  part  and 
give  attention  to  that,  to  the  relative  suppression  of 
the  others,  or  just,  as  in  an  act  of  thought,  we  may 
abstract  one  element  as  the  subject  of  the  prop- 
osition or  the  predicate  from  the  others,  and 
give  attention  predominantly  to  that.  Now  just 
as  in  music  the  knowledge  of  the  principles  of 
harmony  will  aid  us  in  separating  any  one  part 


4OO  RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 

from  the  others,  so  that  we  can  exactly  limit  our  at- 
tention to  it  unconfusedly  with  the  others  and  with 
a  closer,  fuller,  exacter  apprehension  of  it  ;  or  just 
as  in  thought  the  knowledge  of  what  the  subject  is 
in  distinction  from  the  attribute  and  from  the  copula 
element  which  unites  them,  will  give  us  a  clearer, 
exacter,  fuller  notion  of  the  subject  when  we  abstract 
it  for  closer  investigation  and  apprehension  ;  so  the 
knowledge  of  the  beautiful,  of  the  true,  of  the 
good  —  of  their  peculiar  distinctive  characteristics 
and  of  their  necessary  relationships  to  one  another, 
will  naturally  guide  and  help  us  to  a  fuller,  richer, 
exacter  apprehension  of  either.  This  knowledge 
gives  us  the  key  to  unlock  at  will  the  door  that 
opens  to  either  treasure-house.  It  enables  us  to 
summon  forth  from  any  object  offered  to  our  expe- 
rience just  the  element  we  desire  ;  to  recognize 
in  any  object  at  our  will  the  true,  the  beautiful,  or 
the  good,  all  three  of  which  we  have  seen  alike  par- 
ticipate in  it ;  to  assure  ourselves  in  the  experience 
of  it  that  we  have  just  the  one  we  demand,  and 
have  it  sharply  and  fully  and  exactly  distinguished 
from  the  others,  and  so  that  all  the  light  from  the 
others  is  reflected  upon  it  to  enhance  our  experience 
of  it.  Thus  these  sciences  enable  us  to  drink  in  a 
purer,  richer  beauty  from  every  object  whose  form  we 
wish  to  engage  our  sensibility ;  to  discern  in  clearer, 
distincter  knowledge  whatever  is  true  in  any  such 
object ;  to  apprehend  in  larger,  purer  measures  its 
moral  effect  and  bearing. 

§  352.   The   same   view   of   the   vita] 
s^iren«.logical    union  and  close  relationship  of  recip- 
rocally dependent   and  helpful  sister- 


TO    LOGIC    AND    ETHICS.  40! 

hood  subsisting  between  these  three  fundamental 
and  comprehensive  sciences,  is  presented  to  us  as 
we  turn   to   the   second  of   these    sciences — the\ 
science  of  the  true.     To  this  science  the  name  ol 
logic  has  been  given.     For  this  representation  of 
logic  as  the  science  of  the  true,  we  need  present  no 
higher  or  further  authority  than  that  of  Sir  William 
Hamilton,  the  most  honored  and  able  expounder  of 
the  science  certainly  since  Aristotle.      When  un- 
dertaking to  draw  the  lines  of  distinction  between 
the  three  sciences  in  his  seventh  lecture  on  meta- 
physics, he  says  : — "  Logic  is  the  science  of   the 
laws  of  thought  in  relation  to  the  end  which  our 
cognitive  faculties    propose,  i.  e.  the  true."      This 
definition  embraces  both  the  knowing  subject  and 
the  object  known — the  intelligence  or  the  cognitive 
power,  and  the  object  of  the  intelligence — the  true 
or  the  thing  known. 

For  convenience  in  expounding,  psychology 
analyzes  the  faculties  of  the  intelligence,  the  cogni- 
tive powers,  into  the  presentative  and  the  represent- 
ative. The  first  class,  which  includes  the  percep- 
tive and  the  intuitive,  are  regarded  as  introduc- 
tory, and  preparatory.  The  mind  does  not  rest  in 
them  ;  by  a  necessity  of  its  very  nature  it  passes  to 
another  stage  which  is  attained  for  it  by  the  other 
cognitive  power,  which  consummates  and  makes 
complete  the  act  of  knowing.  This  is  the  so-called 
judgment  —  the  proper  product  of  the  understand- 
ing, the  intellect.  For  illustration,  in  perception  we 
are  said  to  be  cognizant  of  the  sun  as  object  merely. 
But  we  cannot  rest  in  this  sense-perception  ;  we  of 


4O2  RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 

necessity  recognize  it  as  bright.  That  is,  we  recog- 
nize the  object  as  having  an  attribute  ;  we  think  the 
sun  is  bright.  This  is  a  judgment.  We  have  at- 
tained no  truth  in  the  simple  perception — the  sun  ; 
we  attain  the  true  only  when  we  think  of  the  object 
in  the  relation  of  a  subject  to  an  attribute  ;  when  we 
think,  in  other  words,  the  sun  is  bright ;  the  sun 
shines  ;  the  sun  exists  ;  or  the  like. 

It  is  obvious  at  once  from  this  exposition  of  the 
experience  of  the  true,  which  is  technically  called  a 
judgment,  that  there  are  necessarily  as  in  the 
experience  of  the  beautiful,  three  elements,  the  sub- 
ject, the  attribute,  and  the  relation  of  agreement  or 
technically  of  identity  between  them — the  copula. 
It  is  clear  also  that  the  more  vital  element  of  the 
judgment  is  found  in  the  relation,  just  as  we  have 
found  to  be  the  case  with  the  beautiful : — it  is  the 
copula  element  which  identifies  the  predicate  or 
attribute  with  the  subject.  The  whole  exposition 
of  logical  science  accordingly  proceeds  essentially  in 
a  way  exactly  analogous  to  that  of  aesthetics.  The 
right  exposition  of  the  one  therefore  must  shed  a 
bright,  guiding  light  on  the  other. 

But  not  only  from  the  analogous  unfolding  of  the 
elements  of  the  beautiful  and  the  true,  but  also  in  the 
second  place,  from  the  reciprocal  determination  of 
the  limits  of  the  two  sciences,  is  this  relationship 
seen  to  be  most  important  and  promising  of  help. 
The  history  of  metaphysical  science  discovers  no 
greater  and  no  more  common  stumbling  block  and 
hindrance  to  truth,  no  more  frequent  or  prolific 
source  of  error  and  dispute  than  the  obscuration  01 


TO   LOGIC    AND    ETHICS.  403 

the  lines  which  bound  aesthetics  from  logic,  the 
province  of  the  sensibility  from  that  of  the  in- 
telligence. It  is  enough  here  to  refer  to  those 
voluminous  discussions  which  have  been  carried  on 
over  the  relations  between  sensation  and  perception 
and  the  obscure,  vague,  and  unsatisfactory,  not  to 
say  self-contradictory  treatment  of  the  imagination. 
An  exile  from  the  realm  of  the  sensibility — it  is 
admitted  only  as  an  alien  in  the  domain  of  the  in- 
telligence with  no  native  or  acquired  rights  of  resi- 
dence. 

The  accurate  and  thorough  scientific  survey  of 
the  provinces  of  these  sciences  cannot  but  indicate 
the  bounds  of  each  ;  and  as  they  are,  on  a  portion 
of  the  boundary  lines  at  least,  continuous,  these 
surveys  must  be  of  reciprocal  service  and  help  to 
each  other. 

Once  more,  the  departments  recognized  in  the 
one  science  may  reasonably  be  presumed  to 
modify  and  specifically  determine  the  depart- 
ments of  the  others.  This  reciprocal  modification 
of  the  departments  of  the  sciences  will  trace  itseh 
more  or  less  definitely  and  clearly  throughout  the 
entire  exposition.  It  will  suffice  here  to  indicate 
only  its  bearing  on  a  fundamental  distribution  of 
the  respective  fields  of  the  two  sciences.  We  have 
found  in  aesthetics  the  two  sides  of  form  as  address- 
ing and  received  ; — we  have  had  given  us  accord- 
ingly, as  leading  departments,  the  production  and 
the  interpretation  of  beauty.  We  have  in  exact 
correspondence  the  two  leading  departments  of  the 
science  of  the  intelligence  —  the  intelligence  as  dis- 


404  RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 

earning  and  the  intelligence  as  demonstrating. 
The  laws  of  the  production  of  beauty  run  a  con- 
tinuous line  with  the  laws  of  the  discernment  of 
truth,  so-  that  with  the  line  run  for  one  science  we 
have  the  data  for  running  the  line  in  the  other. 
The  laws  of  the  intrepretation  of  beauty  bear  a 
similar  relation  to  the  demonstration  of  truth.  We 
cannot  well  demonstrate  truth,  without  imagining  to 
ourselves  the  conditions  by  which  the  sense  shall 
receive  it.  And  so,  on  the  other  h.and,  we  cannot 
interpret  beauty  well,  but  as  we  look  over  into  the 
field  of  truth  and  discover  what  truth  is  demon- 
strated in  the  form  that  addresses  us.  We  need  to 
see  the  idea  revealed  to  us  in  beauty,  in  its  own  in- 
terior relations,  in  the  relations  of  its  own  parts  to 
one  another  and  to  the  whole,  in  order  to  apprehend 
the  beauty  of  the  revelation. 

§  353-  Turning  now  to  the  remaining 
sc?ence£thical  one  of  the  great  sisterhood  of  sci- 

ences — the  science  of  the  good  —  the 
same  interdependence  and  reciprocal  relationship  of 
helpfulness  appears  to  us  in  like  clear  light.  This 
is  ethics  in  its  broader  sense  as  synonymous  with 
what  Sir  William  Hamilton  denominates  Practical 
Philosophy,  which  is  defined  by  him  in  the  same 
lecture  on  metaphysics  to  be  "  the  science  of  the  laws 
regulative  of  our  will  and  desires  in  relation  to  the 
end  which  our  conative  powers  propose — i.e.  the 
Good."  Ethics,  thus,  is  practical — it  immediately 
respects  an  activity  ;  more  exactly  it  respects  idea 
as  activity  ;  as  having  thus  both  a  certain  direction 
and  also  a  certain  end  or  result,  and  thus  presenting 


TO    LOGIC    AND    ETHICS.  405 

its  two  correlative  and  equally  primitive  aspects  of 
right,  and  of  good  in  the  narrower  sense. 

The  very  terms  of  Hamilton's  definition  mark 
the  analogy  in  the  subjective  experience  with  the 
beautiful  and  the  true.  The  introductory  stage  of 
experience  in  beauty,  which  we  recognize  by  our 
analysis  and  abstraction  for  our  convenience  in 
study,  but  never  separate  in  the  concrete,  is  in  what 
we  call  the  mere  passive  sensibility,  and  reaches  no 
farther  than  the  impression.  It  is  simply  introduc- 
tory and  preparatory ;  the  mind  can  never  rest  in 
it ;  but  presses  on  by  a  necessity  of  its  nature  to 
the  full  experience  of  the  form  as  revelation  of 
idea.  Just  so  have  we  found  it  in  the  science  of 
the  true — the  preparatory  perception  or  intuition 
leading  necessarily  to  the  consummating  judgment 
or  thought.  And  just  so  also  in  ethics.  We  have 
the  preparatory  desires  leading  on  to  the  con- 
summating purpose  or  volition  in  which  alone  all 
morality  seats  itself,  just  as  beauty  seats  itself  in 
the  embodiment  of  idea  in  matter  and  truth  in  the 
union  of  subject  and  attribute. 

Precisely  analogous  is  the  three-fold  elemental 
constitution  of  the  ethical  or  the  moral.  There  is 
the  subject  acting,  the  object  respected  in  the  acting, 
the  result  itself  which,  regarded  as  action  in  respect 
to  the  direction  of  acting  subject  towards  the  object 
acted  upon,  we  recognize  as  right  or  otherwise,  or 
which,  regarded  as  act  in  respect  to  the  result,  we 
recognize  as  good  or  otherwise.  So  we  recog- 
nize love  in  the  doer,  good  in  the  deed,  rectitude  in 
the  doing,  as  each  participating  in  the  perfectly 


4O6  RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 

moral.  Moralists  may  expound  with  equal  correct- 
ness the  great  laws  of  ethics  either  comprehensively 
as  the  law  of  love,  taking  their  outlook  from  the 
moral  doer  which  all  morality  implies,  or  from  the 
result — good — which  all  morality  equally  regards, 
or  from  the  relation  of  the  activity — its  direction  — 
the  right.  The  analogy  between  this  science  and 
the  sciences  of  the  true  and  the  beautiful  is  in  this 
respect  of  the  elements  thus  complete. 

§  354.  Again,  the  reciprocal  depend- 
'J±±d£d£  ence  and  helpfulness  of  .these  sciences 
appears  in  the  conterminous  outlining 
of  them.  The  very  definition  we  have  cited  from 
Hamilton,  in  which  he  includes  among  the  practical 
or  ethical  powers  the  desires,  shows  how  ethics 
trenches  immediately  on  aesthetics.  The  same  is 
true  of  the  bordering  confines  of  logic  and  ethics  — 
the  conviction  of  duty  is  on  one  side  purely  intel- 
lectual, on  the  other  purely  ethical.  The  sharply 
drawn  lines  of  scientific  demarcation  for  one  science 
bound  also  the  others.  We  cannot  bound  one  well 
without  looking  over  into  the  others  on  which  we 
bound  ;  we  cannot  bound  on  nothing.  And  so  in 
bounding  out  all  the  departments  of  each,  they  must 
take  their  courses  and  bearings  from  metes  and 
bounds  which  the  other  sciences  may  furnish  or 
determine. 

§  355.     The   especial   relationship   of 
From  history.        aesthetics  to  ethics  cannot  be  more  im- 
pressively evidenced   perhaps  histori- 
cally, than  in  the  remarkable  fact  that  the  nice  sense 
of  the  Greek  mind  recognized  the  hue  of  beauty 


TO    LOGIC    AND    ETHICS.  407 

ever  in  the  lineaments  of  moral  perfection.  The 
beautiful  and  the  good  were  distinguishable  in 
thought ;  but  as  if  the  separation  were  repulsive  as 
suicidal  to  each,  they  in  their  utterance  of  their 
sense  of  the  truly,  perfectly  good,  would  restore 
the  union  and  call  it  the  beautiful  and  good  in  one 
word  —  xaloxdyador.  At  all  events  nothing  can  be 
more  certain  than  that  only  the  perfectly  beautiful 
can  be  perfectly  true  or  good  ;  as  only  the  perfectly 
true  or  good  can  be  perfectly  beautiful.  And  so  the 
provinces  of  the  several  sciences  must  be  through- 
out in  their  outer  boundaries  conterminous  and  in 
exact  correspondence. 


RELATIONS   OF    BEAUTY. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    USES    OF    BEAUTY. 

§  356.    The  beautiful  we  have  found  to 

£SK*  f°r  the  enter  into  the  very  constitution  of 
things.  It  is  an  essential  in  our  idea 
of  creation  ;  for,  as  is  well  observed  in  the  "  Reign 
of  Law"  by  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  "  Creation  is  the 
outward  embodiment  of  a  Divine  idea."  It  would 
be  as  inept  consequently  to  inquire  for  the  final 
cause  of  the  beautiful  as  for  the  final  cause  of  the 
true  or  the  good.  The  perfect  embodiment  of  a 
perfect  idea,  such  as  answers  to  our  notion  of 
creation,  cannot  but  be  beautiful  —  is  nothing  else, 
when  regarded  as  to  its  form  alone,  than  the  beau- 
tiful. 

But  we  have  found  that  through  the  abstracting 
power  of  our  minds,  enabling  us  to  attend  to  any 
one  of  various  aspects  of  the  same  object,  we  are 
enabled  to  regard  one  of  the  three  great  ideas  pre- 
sented to  us  in  every  object  to  the  relative  exclusion 
of  the  others,  and  to  establish  thus  a  propensity  or 
habit  of  regarding  this  rather  than  the  other  ideas. 
One  thus,  following  what  we  loosely  deem  a  native 
bent  or  yielding  to  the  beck  of  circumstances, 
confines  his  views  to  the  true  in  objects  presented 
to  him  ;  he  becomes  by  this  predominant  culture 
of  his  intelligence — a  scholar  or  a  philosopher — a 


THE    USES   OF   BEAUTY.  409 

man  of  learning  or  of  science.  This  general  fact 
prompts  and  justifies  the  inquiries ;  what  are  the 
peculiar  benefits  of  gratifying  this  instinct  of  knowl- 
edge —  what  are  the  uses  of  the  true  ?  In  the  same 
way  under  the  urgency  of  a  similar  instinctive  love 
of  the  beautiful,  we  are  prompted  to  inquire  what 
are  the  special  benefits  from  gratifying  this  instinct ; 
from  guiding  and  cultivating  it  ;  from  wonting  our- 
selves to  seek  out  the  beauty  of  things  abstractly 
from  their  reality  or  the  truth  of  things  and  the  ten- 
dency or  utility  of  things  —  what  are  the  uses  of 
beauty. 

We  start  in  prosecuting  our  inquiries 

The  love  ot  the 

beautiful  instinct-    on  the  broad  ground  that  the  love  of 

ive. 

the  beautiful  is  as  much  a  part  of 
our  natures  as  the  love  of  the  true — the  sensibility 
to  the  forms  of  things  as  the  faculty  of  apprehend- 
ing the  interior  relations  of  things ;  that  the  true 
and  the  beautiful  are  exactly  coordinate  in  the 
world  around  us  ;  that  hence  the  pursuit  of  the 
beautiful  is  as  legitimate  as  that  of  the  true,  and 
culture  of  the  love  of  the  beautiful  as  essential  to 
our  highest  perfection  and  well-being  as  that  of  the 
love  of  the  true  ;  that  they  stand  in  precisely  the 
same  relation  to  our  moral  perfection  and  can 
neither  of  them  fully  effect  its  end  without  the  co- 
operative aid  and  ministry  of  the  other.  And  the 
significance  of  our  inquiry  appears  at  once  from  the 
fact  that  through  the  abstracting  and  specializing 
tendency  of  our  natures  we  are  liable  to  give  ex- 
cessive attention  to  one  part  of  the  world  around 
us,  which  is  at  once  the  incitement  and  the  instru- 


41 0  RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 

ment  of  our  culture,  to  the  neglect  of  the  other, 
and  thus  to  deform  and  dwarf  our  spirits. 

§  357-  The  first  and  most  fundamental 
behau?yleasures  °f  view  which  our  search  for  the  uses  of 

beauty  offers  to  us  is  in  its  relation 
to  our  enjoyment.  So  close  is  this  relation  that 
with  a  class  of  philosophers,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
experience  of  beauty  is  synonymous  with  pleasure  ; 
that  which  is  pleasing  is  ever  the  beautiful,  as  on 
the  contrary  that  which  displeases  is  ever  ugly. 
But  all  this  is  error  or,  worse,  confusion.  There  is  a 
joy  in  the  apprehension  of  the  true — in  knowing, 
as  there  is  a  higher  joy  in  virtue.  The  pleasure 
that  attends  the  experience  of  beauty  comes  from 
it  and  does  not  make  it.  Such  is  the  divine  order- 
ing of  our  natures  that  the  legitimate  use  of  our  en- 
dowments ever  brings  joy.  This  pleasure  from 
the  experience  of  beauty  is  a  veritable  sign  and  proof 
of  its  purity  and  its  reality.  The  fact  that  the 
form  of  an  object  gives  us  pleasure  is  presumptive 
proof  of  its  being  beautiful ;  and  the  higher  the 
pleasure,  the  higher  its  order  of  beauty.  Precisely 
so  the  joy  attending  knowledge  is  a  presumptive 
proof  of  its  being  real  knowledge,  not  illusion,  not 
deception.  The  exultant  "  eureka  "  of  the  philoso- 
pher was  a  token  of  his  having  reached  truth.  And 
just  so  too  the  joy  that  attends  a  virtuous  deed,  the 
complacency  of  the  soul  in  a  beneficent  act,  is  pre- 
sumptive proof  of  the  rightness  and  the  goodness 
of  the  act.  But  in  neither  case  is  the  pleasure  or 
the  joy  the  aesthetic  sense,  the  intelligent  knowing, 
or  the  ethical  willing  ; — it  attends  these  staces 


THE    USES    OF    BEAUTY.  411 

and  attests  their  legitimacy  and  their  purity.  A 
natwral  satisfaction,  pleasure,  joy,  is  the  proper  boon 
of  beauty. 

§  358.  And  this  pleasure  is  altogether 
*inekssand  wori  a  worthy,  wholesome,  elevating  plea- 
sure. It  can  never  degrade,  never 
mislead,  never  discredit.  Relatively  to  the  joy 
proper  to  knowledge,  or  proper  to  virtue,  it  may  be 
disproportionate  ;  but  the  pure  effect  of  beauty  is 
ever  in  harmony  with  our  highest  well-being.  The 
pleasures  of  false  beauty,  of  empty  or  distorted 
forms  of  things,  may  corrupt  ;  just  as  those  of  a 
false  philosophy,  of  spurious  or  imperfect  knowledge. 
But  the  pleasure  that  comes  from  a  sympathetic 
sense  of  perfect  embodiments  of  perfect  ideas  can 
never  harm,  except,  as  intimated,  by  being  indulged 
disproportionally  to  the  pleasures  of  intelligence 
and  of  right  action.  Art  may  minister  to  immorality 
and  vice  ;  but  only  as  it  ceases  to  be  true  and 
perfect  art.  Just  so,  philosophy  and  science  may 
be  enlisted  in  the  service  of  evil ;  but  it  is  ever  an 
erroneous  philosophy  that  subserves  the  vicious  or 
the  wrong.  Even  religion  has  been  degraded  to 
the  vilest  uses ;  and  the  picture  of  good  ends  has 
been  made  a  cover  and  a  warrant  for  the  worst 
morality  in  the  use  of  means.  The  perversion  of 
art  or  of  the  pursuit  of  the  beauty  in  nature  to  ex- 
cessive or  vicious  indulgences  is  but  an  abuse,  not 
a  true  and  right  use  of  beauty. 

§  359.  It  is  further  to  be  remarked  01 
the  use  of  beauty  in  enhancing  the 
legitimate  joy  of  a  good  life,  that  the 


412  RELATIONS   OF    BEAUTY. 

pleasing,  joyous  sense  of  beauty  is  susceptible  of 
indefinite  increase  from  culture.  Unlike  the  ani- 
mal sense  which  clogs  and  palls  and  becomes  blunt 
and  dim,  the  proper  aesthetic  sense,  as  we  have  seen, 
but  enlarges  its  capacity  and  sharpens  and  quickens 
its  apprehension  with  use  and  indulgence.  The 
love  of  nature  grows  with  the  study  cf  nature. 
The  delight  in  art  deepens  and  strengthens  with 
progress.  The  ecstatic,  well  nigh  heavenly  rapture 
of  Mozart,  as  he  fed  on  the  musical  forms,  which  the 
composition  of  his  Requiem  offered  to  his  imagina- 
tion, how  immeasurably  beyond  and  above  all  the 
pleasure  possible  to  his  immature  genius  in  music. 
So  in  another  department  of  art,  how  vast  and  how 
intense  was  the  joy  of  William  Blake,  when  in  his 
riper  years  after  long  use  had  expanded  and 
quickened  his  sense  of  beauty,  in  his  garret  he 
pitied  the  merely  opulent  in  outward  possessions  as 
compared  with  his  exalted  condition  in  the  high 
seats  of  art.  And  what  an  insight  into  the  deep 
joys  which  the  prolonged  study  of  natural  beauty 
brings,  is  given  us  in  that  immortal  confession  of 
Wordsworth,  that  the  meanest  thing  that  grows 
gave  him  thoughts  too  deep  for  tears. 

Here,  then,  in  its  direct  ministry  to  our  most 
legitimate,  highest,  purest,  safest  joy  and  blessed- 
ness, do  we  find  the  first  and  most  fundamental  use 
of  beauty.  By  virtue  of  the  divine  ordinance  in 
creation,  the  proper  experience  of  beauty  brings  a 
necessary  and  exalting  pleasure — a  pleasure  which 
is  pure  and  wholesome,  and  which  rises  ever  in 
proper  indulgence  and  culture.  In  its  lower  forms 


THE    USES    OF    BEAUTY.  413 

beauty  fulfills  this  its  ordained  function  of  giving 
pleasure  ;  in  its  highest  forms  it  allies  the  pleasure 
of  the  aesthetic  experience  with  the  joy  of  the  per- 
fected nature. 

§  360.  But  the  use  of  beauty  appears  in  a  more 
indirect  yet  equally  legitimate  ministry  to  our 
highest  well  being.  This  indirect  and  more  inci- 
dental use  and  ministry  is  of  a  threefold  character 
as  it  relates  to  the  aesthetic,  the  intellectual,  or  the 
moral  nature. 

First,  in  its  aesthetic  bearings,   the  ex- 

Ministry      Of 

beauty  to  the    perience  of  beauty  guides,  animates 

taste  and  to  art.       r  J  ' 

and  nurtures  the  aesthetic  spirit  itself. 
We  have  already  noticed  the  fact  that  the  indulged 
sense  of  beauty  quickens  and  enlarges  by  the  in- 
dulgence. But  we  have  here  another  view.  The 
passive  imagination  quickens  and  feeds  the  active 
imagination  ;  the  sensibility  to  beauty  awakens  and 
fosters  the  instinct  to  produce  beauty  ;  the  capacity 
of  form  stimulates  the  faculty  of  form.  The  artist 
catches  his  inspiration  from  contemplating  art.  The 
condition  of  high  artistic  skill  is  the  study  of  art. 
This  truth  is  of  the  most  common  and  familar 
recognition,  and  in  all  the  departments  of  the 
beautiful.  To  be  conversant  with  the  refined  and 
graceful  in  manners  is  to  become  refined  and  grace- 
ful. The  study  of  painting  guides  in  the  use  of  the 
pencil :  the  hearing  of  eloquence  teaches  how  to  be 
eloquent ;  and  the  hearing  of  rhythm  and  melody 
in  poetry  makes  and  guides  poets,  even  although 
there  be  unconsciousness  of  the  nature  of  rhythmi- 
cal feet  and  of  melodious  intonation.  So  all  art,  all 


414  RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 

production  of  beauty,  remains  meager,  infantile, 
undeveloped,  without  the  observation  of  beautiful 
form.  Architecture  sprang  from  the  suggestion  of 
beauty  discerned  in  nature.  Sculpture  grew  from  the 
observation  of  the  beauty  of  the  human  shape  in  the 
physique  of  the  unclothed  athlete.  Thus  does  the 
experience  of  beauty  in  the  contemplation  of  works 
of  taste  ever  awaken,  stimulate,  guide,  and  nurture 
the  faculty  of  form,  and  also  further  the  produc- 
tion of  beauty  in  manners  and  in  morals,  as  well  as 
in  all  departments  of  proper  art. 

In  the  same  way  the  beauty  of  nature's  forms  is 
familiarly  recognized  as  a  quickening  power  to  taste 
and  to  artistic  skill.  The  aspiring  student  of  art  is 
by  every  judicious  and  experienced  teacher  ear- 
nestly directed  and  exhorted  to  the  diligent  study  of 
nature  as  the  well-furnished  repository  of  all  the  di- 
vers forms  of  beauty,  where  all  kinds  of  idea — divine 
intelligence,  love,  and  goodness — are  revealed  in  all 
the  diversities  of  sensible  matter  and  in  the  most 
perfect  grace.  The  inspiring,  elevating,  refining 
power  of  this  devoted  study  of  nature  as  a  cabinet 
of  beauty  is  too  well  exhibited  in  all  worthy  litera- 
ture to  require  here  more  than  the  simple  mention 
of  the  truth.  It  is  most  forcibly  as  well  as  beauti- 
fully set  forth  by  the  great  poet  of  nature  — Words- 
worth— who  not  only  gave  himself  up  to  the  in- 
fluence of  nature  upon  his  own  spirit,  but  also 
philosophically  studied  the  degree  and  modes  of 
this  influence  upon  the  human  soul.  Its  power  to 
impress  and  nurture  he  recognizes  in  these  sug- 
gestive verses  : — 


THE    USES    OF    BEAUTY.  415 

Nor  less  I  deem  that  there  are  powers 
Which  of  themselves  our  minds  impress  ; 

And  we  can  feed  this  mind  of  ours 
In  a  wise  passiveness. 

So  in  his  little  poem  "Three  years  she  grew,"  he 
intimates  the  specific  effects  of  conversance  with 
nature.  It  is  the  promise  of  nature  to  her  fond- 
ling, that  she  shall  not  fail  to  see 

Even  in  the  motion  of  the  storm 
Grace  that  shall  mold  the  maiden's  form 
By  silent  sympathy. 

And  beauty  born  of  murmuring  sound 
Shall  pass  into  her  face. 

Indeed,  as  it  has  been  well  expressed,  "  life  and 
beauty,  it  seems  to  the  poet,  utter  far  deeper  things 
than  do  final  causes  or  evidence  of  design.  Were 
this  goodly  frame,  the  earth,  but  a  silent  temple,  its 
beauty  would  speak  to  him  of  a  divine  occupant ; 
but  when  the  presence  of  the  Lord, 

In  the  glory  of  his  cloud, 

Has  filled  the  house  of  the  Lord, 

when  the  voices  of  worshipers  are  heard  in  solemn 
adoring,  or  in  choruses  of  triumphal  jubilation,  he 
has  no  need  of  a  physico-theological  argument,  and 
is  apt  perhaps  to  think  it  an  impertinence."  Such 
is  the  power  of  nature  as  beautiful,  as  form,  over 
the  human  spirit,  as  it  is  introduced  by  it  into 
immediate  communion  with  the  all-perfect  and  is  by 
its  beholding  there  his  glory  transformed  into  the 
same  image, 

§  361.  Secondly,  we  discover  another 
impOrtant  indirect  use  of  beauty  in 
its  relations  to  the  intelligence.  From 


RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 

the  vital  intimacy  between  the  true  and  the  beauti- 
ful on  the  one  hand  and  between  the  aesthetic  and 
the  cognitive  departments  of  our  nature  on  the 
other,  we  are  prepared  to  believe  that  the  culture  of 
the  one  must  draw  in  and  facilitate  and  extend 
the  culture  of  the  other  to  any  suppcsable  degree  ; 
that  knowledge  cannot  grow  surely  and  freely  with- 
out the  help  of  the  aesthetic  sense ;  and  that  its 
progress  and  perfection  depend  on  its  aid. 

But  more  specifically,  as  the  active  intelligence  is 
dependent  on  the  passive  intelligence,  as  the  power 
to  demonstrate  truth  pre-supposes  the  acquisition  of 
truth,   so  this  reception  and  acquisition  of  truth 
come   only  through  the  aesthetic  sense  ;  the  truth 
and  reality  of  things  are  given  us  through  the  form 
of  things.     The  quick,  nice,  sure  sense  of  the  forms 
of  objects  is  the  necessary  ccnditionof  the  knowledge 
of  objects.     The  captivating  charm  which  beauty 
gives  to  the  objects  ol  knowledge  and  to  the  forms 
which  knowledge  attains,  .is  the  indispensable  in- 
spiration of  true  science.   Altogether  spiritless,  life- 
less, wanting  in  all  enthusiasm,  must  science  sink 
to  be,  if  it  lack  the  stimulus  and  tone  and  cheer 
which  come  from  the  beauty  in  those  forms  of  the 
objects  of  knowledge  and  those  forms  which  knowl- 
edge   itself   takes  and  embodies  itself  in  that  it 
may  live.     When  science  wins  a  form  that  truly 
pleases   because  beautiful,  it    rests    content  ;    its 
achievement  is  attested  as  a  general  result  of  truth. 
The  highest  attainments  in  the  highest  reaches  of 
its  enthusiastic  complacency  come  forth  in  the  most 
perfect  forms  of  beauty.     So  essential,  so  constant, 
so  helpful,  is  beauty  to  truth, 


THE    USES    OF    BEAUTY. 

There  is  still  another  view  of  the  ministry  of 
beauty   to-  truth.       We  have  found  the  objective 
characters  of  true  objective  beauty  to  include  cer- 
tain proper  intellectual  elements,  as  of  unity,  con- 
trast,   number,    proportion,  symmetry,  harmony  ; 
and  that  accordingly  the  aesthetic  sense  must  be 
intelligent.     The  highest  beauty  cannot  be  reached 
except  with  the  help  of  the  intelligence.     The  more 
intelligent  the   aesthetic  sense  becomes,  the  more 
conversant  with  idea  in  itself,  the  more  quick  to  dis- 
cern it,  the  higher  and  richer  will  be  the  experience 
of  beauty.     The  culture  of  the  sense  of  beauty 
therefore  leads  directly  to  the  culture  of  the  intelli- 
gence.   As  we  cannot  interpret  an  object  of  beauty, 
whether  it  be  a  product  of  art  or  a  thing  in  nature, 
without  apprehending  the  idea  it  reveals,  and  as  in 
proportion  as  the  idea  becomes  richer  in  signifi- 
cancy  to  us  the  beauty  shines  out  more  fully,  so 
our  love  of  beauty  puts  us  on  improving  our  knowl- 
edge.    So,  we  have  seen,  the  beauty  of  a  piece  of  art 
is  enhanced  to  us  by  a  knowledge  of  the  nature  of 
the  material  and  of  the  principles  of  aesthetic  pro- 
duction, which  are  concerned  in  it. 

Thus  every  way  does  aesthetic  culture  draw  in  and 
constrain  the  culture  of  the  intellect ;  the  enlarged 
experience  of  the  beautiful  ensures  the  enlargement 
of  knowledge.  The  more  of  the  beautiful,  ever  the 
more  of  the  true  ;  the  more  perfect  and  exalted  the 
beautiful  in  our  experience,  the  higher  and  purer 
the  true  in  it. 

§  362.   Thirdly,  still  another  important 
TOU» moral  na-    indirect  use  of  beauty  is  in  its  rela- 
tions to  morals.     As  we  have  seen,  all 


41 8  RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 

beauty  participates  in  a  moral  nature  ;  and  the  full 
interpretation  of  beauty  demands  an  aesthetic  sense 
that  is  characterized  as  moral.  The  endeavor  to 
produce  the  beautiful — every  aspiration  in  art  and 
also  the  desire  to  experience  the  beautiful  in  the 
fullest  and  richest  measure  and  degree,  mu-st  lead 
to  the  enlistment  of  the  moral  nature.  It  must  put 
on  the  study  and  practical  experience  of  virtue.  In 
all  the  general  respects  in  short  in  which  the 
beautiful  ministers  to  truth  does  it  also  minister  to 
goodness. 

But  we  need  to  dwell  on  the  more  peculiar  and 
characteristic  ministry  which  beauty  lends  to  virtue. 
All  that  is  properly  moral  is  of  an  active  nature 
in  a  higher  sense  than  is  true  of  the  aesthetic  and 
intellectual.  It  pertains  ever  either  to  an  individ- 
ual act  or  a  permanent  disposition  which  is  the  de- 
termination of  a  man's  own  proper  active  faculty — 
his  will.  The  very  nature  of  mind  or  of  spirit  is 
indeed  activity  ;  but  all  that  spontaneous  activity 
which  underlies  the  voluntary  and  in  which  the 
voluntary  inheres,  is  rather  to  be  accounted  the  or- 
dering of  the  Creator,  and  the  expression  of  his 
idea.  But  the  moral  in  man  which  is  never  separ- 
able from  his  freedom,  and  is  ever  the  expression  ol 
that,  is  the  active  in  man  in  the  highest,  strictest 
sense.  The  intelligence  itself  is  a  form  of  the 
divine  activity,  except  so  far  as  the  free  will  of  man 
enters  it,  and  controls  and  determines  it.  The  ex- 
pression of  this  active  free  will,  if  it  be  perfect  in 
all  respects,  if  it  be  the  proper  legitimate  action  of  the 
spirit,  if  it  be  put  forth  in  its  proper  matter,  and  be 


THE    USES    OF    BEAUTY.  419 

rightly  embodied  or  directed,  cannot  but  be  a  form 
of  perfect  beauty,  if  our  general  view  of  the  nature 
of  beauty  be  correct  and  sound.  So  Milton  rec- 
ognizes sublimity  and  beauty  as  the  very  constit- 
uents of  the  form  of  moral  perfection  when  he 
says  that  Satan  at  the  sight  of  an  unfallen  angel 
stood  abashed — 

And  felt  how  awful  goodness  is,  and  saw 
Virtue  in  her  shape  how  lovely. 

Right  action  and  pure  moral  disposition  awes  as 
sublime  and  charms  as  beautiful.  It  is  called  forth 
by  this  loveliness  of  its  native  form.  It  is  en- 
couraged and  sustained  by  the  pleasing,  satisfying 
shape  it  necessarily  assumes  as  it  comes  to  be.  How, 
when  from  fierce  struggle  with  evil  the  right  comes 
out  triumphant,  does  the  eye  of  the  soul  flash,  and 
the  inmost  sense  of  the  heart  warm  and  glow  as  the 
abiding  form  which  the  action  has  assumed 
shines  before  it  and  presses  itself  upon  it.  An  ap- 
proving conscience  is  but  the  aesthetic  sense  in  its 
ethical  modifications  ;  and  the  pale  specters  that 
haunt  the  guilty  soul  are  but  the  forms  which 
wrong  actions  have  shaped  in  the  spirit's  life. 

In  this  general  view  we  find  the  grounds  of  those 
current  maxims  that  companionship  with  the  re- 
fined and  virtuous  refines  and  purifies,  while  society 
with  the  bad  corrupts  and  degrades.  A  coarse, 
vicious  spirit  is  rebuked,  repressed  in  virtuous 
surroundings.  Boorishness  wears  off  in  polite 
society.  Purity  of  soul  thrives  when  all  around  is 
pure.  The  love  of  beauty  in  nature  brings  into 
sympathy  with  God  and  keeps  the  soul  in  society  with 


42O  RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 

Him,  whose  whole  nature  is  a  fostering  atmosphere  to 
goodness.  The  pursuit  of  art  keeps  one  conversant 
with  the  truest  beauty,  which,  as  we  have  found,  is 
ethical  in  its  nature.  Such  at  least  is  the  legiti- 
mate influence  of  art — of  art  as  it  should  be,  and 
in  order  to  be  truest  and  most  perfect,  it  must  be. 
It  is  true  that  the  ministry  of  art  and  of  beauty 
may  be  perverted.  Immoral  ideas  and  impure  or 
vicious  designs,  debasing  matter,  or  foul  embodi- 
ment may  enter  art.  Even  pure  art-products  may 
be  vilely  construed.  But  the  same  is  to  be  allowed 
of  truth.  Science  is  often  perverting,  debasing. 
The  false  enters  philosophy,  the  fiendish  enters 
doctrine  and  teaching,  equally  as  the  ugly  enters 
art  with  base  design.  But  the  false  is  not  more 
opposed  to  the  true  than  the  ugly  to  the  beautiful ; 
nor  the  vicious  and  immoral  in  their  nature  more 
hostile  to  science  than  to  true  art.  The  cultivated 
aesthetic  sense  rejects  the  immoral  as  instinctively 
as  the  ugly. 

It  is  a  notion  somewhat  prevalent,  that  beauty 
as  mere  form  can  be  only  emptiness,  a  mere  show 
without  substance.  It  is  thought  that  as  mere  form 
it  is  devoid  of  reason  and  consequently  that  reason 
can  have  no  concern  with  it ;  that  to  give  oneself 
to  the  production  of  beauty  or  the  contemplation  of 
beauty  is  to  amuse  oneself  with  empty  show — to 
give  oneself  to  play,  that  children  may  be  indulged 
in,  but  that  the  serious  earnestness  of  mature  life 
should  lay  aside  and  shun.  But  long  ago  did  Schil- 
ler utter  the  paradox  that  "man  only  plays  when  he 
is  a  man,  and  he  is  only  entirely  a  man  when  he 


THE    USES    OF    BEAUTY.  42! 

plays."  The  ripest  culture  only  apprehends  the 
highest,  richest  beauty,  and  true  ripeness  in  the 
human  soul  is  only  when  there  is  outlined  in  it  the 
image  or  form  of  a  true  spiritual  ideal  shaping  ail 
its  activity.  The  essential  idea  of  play,  as  the  term 
is  here  used  by  Schiller  is  freedom  ;  when  idea  utters 
itself  freely,  exempt  from  all  constraint  from  within 
or  from  without,  then  and  only  then  is  there  per- 
fect beauty.  Just  so  to  apprehend  beauty,  the  soul 
must  give  itself  freely  to  the  full  impressions  of 
the  object.  This  is  play.  But  it  is  the  play  of  a 
rational  spirit  which  can  never  renounce  or  lay 
aside  its  rational  nature.  While  it  plays  or  acts  out 
its  freedom  in  art  or  in  contemplation,  and  the 
whole  outer  surface  of  the  spirit  puts  on  a  multitu- 
dinous ripple  of  playful,  laughing  joy,  there  is  yet  the 
deep  flow  of  reason  beneath,  not  only  bearing  it,  but 
bearing  it  in  its  own  way  to  its  own  end. 

Moreover  it  is  undeniable  that  the  form  is  often  of 
higher  import  and  interest  than  even  either  the  idea 
revealed  in  the  form  or  the  matter  in  which  it  is  re- 
vealed. It  is  the  gracefulness  of  an  act  of  courtesy 
or  of  kindness  often  which  gives  it  its  chief  value. 
The  human  form,  in  the  sense  of  the  union  of  a 
mind  or  soul  with  matter,  of  the  embodiment  of  the 
spiritual  in  the  material,  overshadows  in  its  interest 
the  nature  both  of  spirit  in  itself  and  of  the  dust  into 
which  it  has  breathed  itself.  The  God  incarnate  is 
more  to  us  in  its  claims  upon  our  highest  and  most 
serious  regards  than  the  divine  in  its  own  nature  or 
the  created  nature  in  which  it  revealed  itself.  Our 
chief  concern  lies  in  forming  the  ideal  of  the  perfect 


422  RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 

in  our  shaping  characters.  Call  it  by  what  name 
you  will,  this  bringing  the  spirit  into  the  freest  and 
fullest  play  in  the  glorious  liberty  of  a  divine  son- 
ship,  is  our  most  serious  pursuit ;  and  that  divine 
form  of  a  perfect  beauty  of  character  may  well  and 
wisely  be  kept  before  us  as  the  model  and  the  charm 
of  our  life's  whole  endeavor. 


THE    USES    OF    .ESTHETICS.  423 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    USES    OF    AESTHETICS. 

§  363.  The  uses  of  aesthetics  —  of  an  orderly 
systematic  exposition  of  the  nature  of  beauty,  of  its 
essential  elements,  its  modification  in  all  the  diver- 
sified kinds  of  beauty  throughout  the  universe  so 
far  as  it  comes  into  our  experience,  the  conditions 
and  laws  of  its  production  and  its  interpretation  — 
become  obvious  from  the  nature  of  beauty  and  its 
relations  to  the  two  other  coordinated  principles  of 
our  rational  being  —  the  true  and  the  good. 

To  it  belong  all  the  uses  which  pertain 
A  true  science.  to  science  generally.  ./Esthetics  is  a 

true  science  ;  it  has  its  definite  subject 
matter  ;  it  has  its  systematic,  logical  development, 
as  truly  and  as  perfectly  as  any  science. 

It  belongs  to  the  highest  class  of 
(*k.the  hiehest  sciences.  As  coordinate  with  the 

sciences  of  the  true  and  the  good, 
making  up  with  them  the  three  comprehensive 
sciences  —  the  three  highest  and  broadest  sciences 
including  all  others  under  them  — it  claims  to  itself 
the  power  to  impart  the  benefits  of  proper  science 
of  a  kind  and  to  a  degree  unsurpassed  by  any. 

§  364.  ^Esthetic  science  has  the  es- 
faU  pecial  merit  and  peculiarity  of  being 

the  very  portal  of  all  knowledge  as  we 


424  RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 

receive  truth  only  through  form  by  the  aesthetic 
sensibility.  It  is  of  moment  therefore,  that  the 
principles  by  which  we  inform  our  minds  in  all 
knowledge,  be  understood  by  us. 

If  we  conceive  of  it  as  but  a  science  of  form,  of 
show,  of  play,  as  we  may  in  a  legitimate,  perhaps, 
but  rather  unfamiliar  sense  of  those  terms,  it  is  as 
such  the  very  charm  and  inspiration  of  all  study 
and  knowledge,  and  we  need  especially  to  be  so  in- 
structed that  we  may  never  be  misled  by  false  show 
and  be  deluded  by  mere  dazzle  and  glitter.  ^Es- 
thetics teaches  us  what  is  true  beauty ;  where  it  may 
be  found  ;  how  it  may  be  discriminated  from  the 
false  ;  how  it  may  best  be  produced,  and  how  best 
enjoyed.  It  claims  these  preeminent  uses  as  a 
science. 

§  365.  But  in  the  next  place  its  utility 
!ence  is  obvious  from  its  relations,  as  already 
indicated,  to  its  sister  coordinate  sci- 
ences of  the  true  and  the  good — logic  and  ethics. 
It  is  impossible  to  attain  a  perfect  science  in  either 
of  these  departments  except  in  the  light  of  aesthet- 
ics and  by  the  aid  and  guidance  which  it  alone  can 
render.  The  truth  of  things  cannot  be  scientific- 
ally expounded  unless  it  be  carefully  and  definitely 
distinguished  from  the  form  of  things.  We  are  war- 
ranted in  presuming  this  from  the  relations  of 
beauty  to  truth.  The  history  of  science  up  to  its 
present  stage  confirms  this  presumption.  If  there 
be  any  great  defect  and  want,  if  there  be  any  vice 
and  hindrance  to  science,  it  will  be  found  preemi- 
nently to  arise  from  the  ignorance  of  beauty  as  the 


THE    USES    OF    AESTHETICS.  425 

perfect  form  of  things  and  of  its  clear  discrimination 
from  the  truth  of  things.  The  age  is  an  age  of 
marvelous  intellectual  activity  which  moreover  is 
characterized  by  a  remarkable  keenness  and  thor- 
oughness of  observation.  It  lacks  certainly  logical 
discernment  and  skill ;  but  its  chief  defect  lies  in 
its  confounding  the  form  with  the  idea  in  the  form, 
which  it  is  the  function  of  aesthetic  science  to  dis- 
criminate. Hence  it  is  that  mind  and  matter  are 
made  one  and  identical,  or  rather  are  annihilated ; 
the  unity  of  all  things  is  in  a  mysterious  inexplicable 
organism  which  is  neither  mind  nor  matter,  has  no 
origin,  has  no  aim  as  it  has  no  sight,  works  blindly 
but  yet  selectingly,  is  the  unconscious  parent  of  all 
things  conscious  and  unconscious,  and  dies  ever  in 
the  death  of  its  offspring.  This  scientism  itself  is 
but  organism  ;  it  has  no  sense  of  form  as  distinct 
from  substance  or  idea.  Idea  and  form  are  indis- 
tinguishably  one  and  the  same  to  it.  This  confu- 
sion, which  is  the  legitimate  effect  of  the  one-sided 
training  of  the  age,  of  its  neglect  to  study  the  form- 
side  of  things  as  distinguished  from  the  idea-side, 
is  at  once  the  vice  of  recent  science  and  the  hin- 
drance to  its  sure  and  rapid  advance. 

A  more  specific  illustration  of  the  especial  need 
of  aesthetic  science  and  also  of  its  promise  of  a 
high  utility  is  found  in  some  of  the  leading  specu- 
lations of  the  age  in  the  highest  of  the  subordinate 
sciences — theology.  Two  questions  more  than 
any  others  are  agitating  the  theological  world  : — 
the  one  is,  can  the  Infinite  be  known  at  all  ;  the 
other  is,  can  God  reveal  His  will  infallibly  in  Ian- 


426  RELATIONS    OF    BEAUTY. 

guage.  It  is  evident  that  these  problems  can  be 
solved  and  assurance  of  the  truth  in  solution  be 
gained  only  as  the  nature  of  form,  of  what  communi- 
cation of  spirit,  idea — infinite  as  well  as  finite  —  to 
other  spirits  is  ;  what  are  the  limitations,  and  what 
the  true  interpretation  of  form,  of  revelation,  of  spirit 
or  idea  in  matter. 

§  366.  In  ethics,  also,  the  necessities 
TO^  ethical  sci-  Qf  ^Q^Q^  knowledge  are  equally  ap- 
parent. The  noble  and  the  beautiful 
in  art  and  in  character  are  recognized  as  having  as 
truly  an  ethical  nature,  as  the  right  and  the  benefi- 
cent. But  except  from  the  light  which  aesthetics 
sheds  upon  them  many  unanswerable  questionings 
arise  which  obscure  and  shake  to  their  foundation 
all  our  ethical  conclusions.  Is  the  noble  and  the 
beautiful,  right  and  praiseworthy  in  itself,  because 
noble  and  beautiful  ?  If  so,  how  does  it  relate  itself 
to  the  moral  nature  ?  If  so,  why  not  make  ethics 
the  science  of  the  noble  and  the  excellent  ?  When 
the  fair  and  noble  mingle  with  the  wrong  and  vicious, 
what  is  the  moral  estimate  it  should  receive  ?  How 
comes  the  old  "  honest,"  meaning  properly  the 
beautiful,  to  lose  its  meaning  and  come  to  denote 
mere  commercial  integrity  ?  How  comes  the  aes- 
thetic to  interchange  in  language  and  in  the  opinions 
of  men  with  the  right  and  the  good  ?  Why  is  un- 
lovely love  defective  in  morality  ?  Why  is  the  boor- 
ishly right  censurable  ;  and  the  uncouth  deed  of 
goodness  morally  entitled  to  no  gratitude  and  rightly 
ly  provocative  of  indignation  and  censure?  Such 
are  specimens  of  the  questions  which  track  the  path 


THE    USES   OF   AESTHETICS.  427 

of  ethical  science  and  which  find  no  quieting  satis- 
faction except  in  the  light  of  aesthetic  science.  So 
do  the  threads  of  the  true  and  the  good  interweave 
themselves  with  those  of  the  beautiful,  that  only  by 
the  careful  intelligent  separation  of  each  from  the 
other  and  the  distinct  recognition  of  each  by  its 
own  proper  hue  can  any  part  of  the  great  woof  of 
our  experience  be  clearly  and  perfectly  discriminated 
and  known. 

§  367.  But  the  highest  utility  of  aesthetic  science 
is  to  be  discovered  in  its  relations  to  culture  —  to 
the  development  and  shaping  of  character.  In  or- 
der to  the  fulfilment  of  this  chief  end  of  our  earthly 
living,  we  need  to  know  what  are  the  ideals  we  are 
to  select,  where  to  find  them,  how  to  identify  and 
prove  them.  To  every  individual  and  to  every 
people  there  is  one  great  ideal  of  character  —  one 
comprehensive  end  and  aim  of  culture.  But  this 
comprehensive  ideal  breaks  and  changes  itself  into 
subordinate  ideals  in  all  the  several  stages  of  growth 
and  progress.  Esthetic  science  has  for  its  special 
object  in  part,  as  we  have  seen,  to  guide  us  in  this 
relation.  Further,  character  shapes  itself  in  bodily 
movement,  in  word,  in  thought,  in  feeling,  in  spe- 
cific purpose  and  endeavor,  which  again  express 
themselves  in  all  that  outwardly  belongs  to  us,  our 
dress  and  habitation,  and  physical  surroundings. 
It  is  aesthetic  science  which  unfolds  to  us  the  prin- 
ciples and  rules  by  which  we  are  to  select  and  use 
all  this  outward  material  in  which  our  growing  and 
shaping  characters  form  themselves.  This  selection 
and  handling  can  be  wise  and  safe  only  as  they  are 


42  RELATIONS   OF    BFAUTY. 

intelligent.  .  We  are  not  ordered  nor  permitted  with 
impunity  to  blunder  into  what  is  excellent  and  good. 
Then  above  all  we  need  to  understand  how  we  are 
to  incorporate  all  these  ideals  to  be  taken  by  us  one 
by  one  with  every  advancing  step  of  our  progress 
as  they  change  and  vary  in  reference  not  only  to  the 
stage  of  our  maturity  but  also  to  the  material  of 
specific  word  or  act  or  thought  into  which  they  are 
to  be  shaped — how  embody  them  freely,  gracefully, 
well,  in  these  outer  forms.  We  need  to  understand 
this  philosophy  of  form — its  guiding  principles 
and  rules,  all  which  lie  in  the  realm  of  aesthetic 
science. 

To  take  another  view,  aesthetic  science 
use  of  models.  teaches  us  the  necessity  and  the  utility 

of  models  in  all  culture.  It  instructs 
us  where  to  find  them,  by  what  signs  to  discriminate 
the  true  from  the  false,  the  truly  elevating,  refining, 
from  the  meretricious  and  the  misleading  and  de- 
basing ;  what  are  fit  and  proper  for  our  divers  con- 
ditions and  relations,  for  individuals  and  for  com- 
munities ;  what  forms  of  nature  are  to  be  sought 
out  and  studied,  what  products  of  art  to  be  selected, 
that  as  models  of  the  truly  excellent,  they  may  by 
our  contemplation  of  them,  be  right  molds  for  our 
fashioning  spirits  ;  and  how  to  use  these  models  and 
how  apply  them.  This  indispensable  condition  of 
all  true  culture  in  whatever  department  from  the 
lowest  to  the  highest,  from  mere  manners  and  civil 
courtesies  up  through  all  social  morality  and  per- 
sonal refinement  to  the  modes  of  our  proper  reli- 
gious life —  this  indispensable  condition  and  means 


THE    USES    OF    AESTHETICS.  429 

of  culture  given  in  models,  we  go  in  vain  to  seek 
elsewhere  than  in  the  domain  of  aesthetic  science. 
Here  in  short,  must  we  go  to  learn  what  it  is  to 
put  principle  into  purpose  and  purpose  into  en- 
deavor and   endeavor   into  efficient  act ;    to  put 
thought  into  word  and  word  into  fit  organ  and  in- 
strument to  penetrate  and  also  to  command  the 
recesses  of  the  human  soul ;  to  put  fond  affection 
into  a  golden  chalice  that  shall  be  its  own  pass- 
port to  the  heart  when  craving  sympathy,  and  shall 
make  itself  the  sure  recipient  of  grateful,  confiding 
response  ;    to  put   the  forth-bringings  of  prolific 
genius  into  art-forms  that  shall  live  and  endure  for 
brightening,  elevating,  and  blessing  toilsome  life  ; 
to  put,  in  fine,  the  human  spirit  in  its  unshaped 
childhood  and  youth  into  the  mold  of  the  all-perfect 
that  it  may  grow  up  into  him  in  all  things.     In  this 
scientific  field  of  the  beautiful  alone  do  we  find 
what  all  this  is  and  how  it  is ;  the  rule  to  guide, 
and  the  power  to  quicken  and  to  enable  in  all  true 
rational  culture,  in  all  worthy  act,  in  all  proper  hu- 
man life. 


APPENDIX. 


EMBLEMS  AND  SYMBOLS  IN  ART  FROM   HEBENSTREIT*S 
Encyklop&die  der  ^Esthetik. 


Anchor,  hope ;  commerce. 

Ant,  frugality. 

Ape,  imitation,  cunning. 

Ashes,  death. 

Beaver,  diligence,  skill. 

Bee,  industry. 

Blindfold  and  dagger  in  hand, 
fanaticism. 

Blue,  stupidity. 

Bridle,  moderation. 

Butterfly,  fickleness,  frivolity. 

Candle  lighted,  good  example. 

Caiitfle    paschal,    light  of  the 
gospel. 

Candlestick  with  seven  branch- 
es, the  seven  sacraments. 

Censer,  prayer. 

Chain  about  a  globe,  slavery. 

Circle,  completeness. 

Crocodile,  false. 

Crown  of  thorns,  expiation. 

Cup  with  wafer,  the  supper. 

Dove,  innocence. 

Dove    hovering  in  flame,   the 
Holy  Spirit. 

Eagle,  genius,  magnanimity. 

Eel,  misanthropy. 

Eider  duck,  affection. 


Elephant,  moderation,  intelli« 
gence ;  religion." 

Ermine,  predetermination. 

Fire  and  water,  purity. 

Fly,  impudence. 

Fox,  deceit ;  cunning. 

Frog,  inquisitiveness. 

Globe  with  a  cross,  the  Christ- 
ian world. 

Goat,  foresight 

Gold,  purity. 

Goose  with  a  stone  in  the  bill, 
secrecy. 

Hammer  and  nails,  necessity. 

Hands  two,  joined,  good  faith  ; 
fidelity. 

Hare,  fear ;  cowardice ;  forget- 
ful ness. 

Hawk,  taste. 

Heart  burning,  sympathy. 

Hen,  productiveness. 

Horn  from  which  flowers  are 
falling,  plenty. 

Indian,  pretension ;  pride. 

Jacob's  ladder,  contemplation ; 
meditation. 

Keys  crossed,  sovereignty  of 
the  church. 


APPENDIX. 


431 


Lamb,  gentleness. 

Lamb  offered  on  the  altar,  the 
sacrifice  of  Christ. 

Lamp,  study 

Leopard,  ferocity. 

Lion,  strength  ;  spirit ;  magna- 
nimity. 

Lion  with  an  arrow  which  he  is 
drawing  out,  revenge. 

Mask,  hyprocrjsy. 

Mirror,  truth  ;  wisdom. 

Owl,  acknowledgment. 

Ox,  moderation. 

Oxhorns,  industry. 

Oyster,  quiet ;  weakness. 

Palm,  reward  of  the  righteous. 

Parrot,  docility. 

Partridge,  appetite. 

Pelican,  sympathy ;  motherly 
love. 

Pillars  hewn  in  the  rock,  firm- 
ness. 

Quicksilver,  unres  t. 

Rabbit,  productiveness. 

Rat,  waste. 

River  horse,  harm  ;  loss. 

Rose  white,  innocence. 


Scales  and  sword,  justice. 

Seal  and  key,  fidelity  ;  secrecy. 

Serpent,  cunning. 

Serpent  holding  its  tail,  eternity. 

Serpent  coiled  around  a  rod, 
trade. 

Sparrow,  melancholy. 

Sphinx,  mystery. 

Stork,  gratitude  ;  filial  pity. 

Sun  and  open  book,  the  truth 
of  religion. 

Swallow,  floating  success. 

Swine,  selfishness ;  filth. 

Tortoise,  slowness ;  dullness. 

Triangle  shining,  trinity. 

Trumpet,  proclamation  of  the 
gospel. 

Turtle  dove,  conjugal  faith. 

Veil,  faith. 

Viper,  calumny. 

Weather  vane,  unsteadiness. 

Wheel,  inconstancy  ;  fickleness. 

Wild  boar,  violence. 

Wreath  of  stars,  glory  ;  reward 
of  the  righteous  ;  immor- 
tality. 


INDEX. 


PAGE. 

Action  and  repose,  beauty  of,  70 

/Esthetic  Number,  beauty  of,  76  ;  in 
architecture,  191 ;  in  landscape, 
242  ;  in  music,  311 

/Esthetic  Science,  46-56 ;  coordi- 
nate with  logic  and  ethics,  46  ; 
its  matter,  47 ;  history,  50 ;  rela- 
tions to  logic  and  ethics,  397 ; 
uses  of,  423 

A  lison,  theory  of  beauty,  13  ;   see 

Jeffrey. 

Allegory,  331 

A  lliteration,  325 

A  merican  -writers  on  aesthetics,  51 

Architecture,  its  laws,  169-228;  of 
idea,  169;  of  material,  176;  me- 
chanical design,  183 ;  of  artistic 
design,  186;  decorative  design, 
222  ;  history,  196;  domestic,  172; 
religious,  173  ;  civil,  174;  leading 
styles  characterized,  197 ;  its  fu- 
ture, 221  ;  how  interpreted,  364 
Artistic  Beauty,  104;  c'.esirn,  149; 

in  architecture,  186;  in  .landscape,  237 
A  rts  classed  in  respect  to  senses  ad- 
dressed,  100 ;  as  free  or  depend- 
ent, no 
Assonance,  initial  and  terminal,          324 
Baumgarien,  originator  of  aesthetics 

as  science,  50 

Beauty,  its  nature,  1-56 ;  in  the 
concrete,  in  the  rainbow,  3  ;  ele- 
ments, 9;  objective,  13-23  ;  theo- 
ries of  AiLon  and  Jeffrey,  13  ; 
Hutcheson,  19  ;  Solger,  19  ;  re- 
solving itintop'easurc,  19;  of  De- 
Quincy,  21  ;  universality,  24-31  ; 
relativeness,  32-36 ;  theory  of 
Zimmerman,  34 ;  of  Kant  and 
Hamilton,  35,  41;  of  Burke,  39; 
Grecian,  52  ;  British,  53  ;  French, 
54;  German,  55;  kinds,  57-125; 
gradations,  39,  64-69  ;  laws, 
126-385  ;  uses,  408 

Burke,  theory  of,  39,  95 

Caryatides,  226 

Catholic  Beauty,  77-135  ;  in  style,     145 
Chambers,  Sir  William,  cited,  225 

ChevereuVs  law,  282 

Coliseum,  the,  211 

Co! or,  1 80 ;  in  sculpture,  257  ;  in 
painting,  '  282 


PACE. 

Column,  Grecian,  201 

Comic,  its  nature,  120 ;  divisions, 
J2i  ;  laws,  165  ;  unintentional, 
165  ;  intentional,  166 

Comprsite  order,  2o?> 

Contrast,  beauty  of,  74  ;  in  architect- 
ure, 190;  in  landscape,  242;  in 
music,  312 

Conventionalism,  155 

Corinthian  order^  207 

Counterpoint,  303 

Cousin,  his  exclusion  of  beauty  from 
tastCj  touch,  and  smell,  96 ;  dis- 
crimination of  proper  beauty  and 
sublimity,  117 

CttSSTajlt,  212,   213 

Decoration,  152;  its  laws — must  be 
subordinate  and  subvervient,  153, 
154 ;  in  architecture,  222  ;  its  mo- 
tives, 222  ;  means  threefold,  223  ; 
in  landscape,  246 

Dependtnt  Beauty,  107,  i.;/ 

De  ign,  laws  of,    147-154  ;     three- 
fold,  148;   mechanical,    148;    ar- 
tistic, 149;  decorative,  152 
Diatonic  Scale,  300 
Discourse,  antiquity,  and  rank,  317  ; 

element,  317;  origin,  318 

Doric  architecture,  200 

Dynamics,  305 

Elements  of  Beauty,  9,  12 

Emblems  fnri  S\mboh  in  art,  430 

Emotive  Beauty,  Si  ;  law,  137 

English  writers    on  zsthetics,  51 ; 

poetry,  343 

Engraving,  278 

Ethics,  relations  of  aesthetics  to,         397 
Euarr'thmy,  see  /Esthetic Number. 
Expression,    its  laws,   156—168:    of 
the  proper  beautiful,   157;  of  the 
sublime,  160  ;  of  the  comic,  165 

Expressive  style  in  landscape,  246 

Feeling  in  music,  how  diversified,      293 
Feet  in  poetry,  325 

Fergusso",  cited,  180,  183 

F;tness,  beauty  of,  72 

Foliation,  gothic,  226 

F^rce  in  music,  304 

form,  an  element  of  beauty,  12  ; 
its  relation  to  the  imagination,  44 ; 
Jaw,  143-168 ;  in  sculpture,  260  ; 
in  painting,  279 


INDEX. 


433 


PAGE. 

Formal  Beauty,  59,  103-125 ;  ar- 
tistic beauty,  104 ;  free  and  de- 
pendent beauty,  107;  proper  beau- 
ty, 113;  sublimity,  115;  comic 
beauty,  120 

Free  Beauty,  83,  107,  147 

French  writers  on    aesthetics,   51  ; 

poetry,  341 

Fugue,  304 

Generic  Beauty,  77;  see  Catholic. 
Geometric  style  of  landscape,  243 

German  writers  on  aesthetics,  51  ; 

poetry,  331 

Golden  section,  193 

Good,  idea  of  the,  388 

Gothic  architecture,  214 

Grace,  83  ;  law,  137;  in  style,  146 

Grecian,  architecture,  198 ;  sculp- 
ture, 268 ;  painting,  286 ;  music, 
315;  poetry,  338 

Groined  vault,  216 

Hamilton,  Sir  William,   theory  of 

beauty,  35,  41  ;  of  the  sublime,        116 
Harmony,  beauty  of,  74  ;  in  archi- 
tecture, 195  ;  in  poetry,  327-331 
Hav,  rule  of  visual  angle,  193 
Ifebreiv  poetry,                                      334 
Hindoo  poetry,                                      337 
Hume,  theory  of  beauty,  15 
Hutcheson,  theory  of  beauty,               19 
Ide  T,  an  element  of  beauty,  1 1 ;  law 
of,  130-140;   requires  u)  earnest 
study,  131 ;  (2)  conformity  to  laws 
of  mind,  132  ;  law  in  architecture, 
169  ;  in  landscape,  229 ;  in  sculp- 
ture, 249;   in   painting,   272;    in 
music,  292  ;  in  poetry,                      320 
Ideal  Beauty,  60,  70-84  ;   beauty  of 
action  and  repose,  70 ;  intellectual 
beauty,  71 ;    of  truthfulness,  71  ; 
of  fitness,  72 ;    of  unity,   73  ;  of 
harmony,  74  ;  of  contrast,  74  ;  of 
proportion,  75  ;  of  symmetry,  76 ; 
of  .esthetic  number,  76 ;   generic 
beauty,  77;   emotive  beauty,  81 ; 
free  beauty  or  grace,                          83 
Idials  in  sculpture,  three  classes,       252 
Imagery,                                         323-33 1 
Imagination,     its    nature,    37-46; 
passive  and  active,  37 ;  commensu- 
rate with  beauty,  38 ;   denomina- 
tions, 38 ;  place  among  mental  fac- 
ulties, 39;  not  properly  a  faculty 
of  the  intel'.igence,                              40 
Imitation  in  music,                                304 
Intaglio,                                                  264 
Intellectual  Beauty,  71 ;  laws,  133- 

137  ;  in  architecture,  189 

Interpretation  of  beauty,  347—385  ; 
method,  347 ;  subjective  laws,  348 ; 
objective  laws,  356;  application  of 
laws  to  the  several  arts,  364-379 ; 
to  architecture,  364 ;  to  landscape, 
367 ;  to  sculpture,  372 ;  to  paini- 
ng* 375  i  to  music,  376;  to  poetry,  379 


PAGE. 

Ionic  order,  205 

Italian  sculpture,   271 ;     painting, 

287;  music,  315;  poetry,  340 

Jeffrey,  theory  of  beauty,  14 ;  op- 
posed by  common  sense,  15  ;  by 
language,  16 ;  not  sustained  by 
argument,  17;  does  not  account 
for  all  beauty,  18 

Jouffroy,  doctrine  that  every  object 

is  sign  of  idea,  3 1 

K 'times,  limitation  of  beauty  to  ob- 
jects of  sight,  93 
Kant,  doctrine  of  beauty,                35,  41 
Kinds  of  Beauty,   gradations,    59 ; 
ideal,  60,  70-84  ;  material,  59,  85- 
103  ;  formal,                         59,  103-125 
Landscape,   its  name  and  sphere, 
228;  origin,  228 ;  law  of  ideal,  229; 
(i)  economic,  229;    (2)  aesthetic, 
231 ;  lavy  of  material,  232  ;  law  of 
mechanical  design,   235  ;    law  of 
artistic  design,  237  ;  history,  243  ; 
geometric    style?     243 ;     pseudo- 
natural,  244  ;   picturesque,    245  ; 
expressive    or  true  artistic,  246 ; 
law  of  decorative   design,    246 ; 
how  interpreted,                               367 
Lancoon,  the,                                          158 
Laws  of  Beauty,  126-168 ;   ascer- 
tained from  attributes  127;   two- 
fold ( i)  laws  of  production,  (2)  laws 
of  interpretation,  128  ;    in  nature 
and  in  art,  128;  law  of  idea,  130- 
140;    of  material,    140-142  ;    of 
form,  143-168;  of  style,  143-147; 
of  design,  147-156 ;  of  artistic  ex- 
pression,                                    156-168 
L  if  At  and  shade  in  architecture,  i  So ; 

in  landscape,  276;  in  painting,  280 
Lcgic,  relations  of  aesthetics  to,  397 
Lubke,  cited,  214 

Major  and  minor  intervals,  301 

Mannerism  in  style,  144 

Material  Beauty,  39,  85-103 

Matter  in  Beauty,  10;  inorganic, 
85  ;  organic,  86 ;  sentient,  87 ; 
spiritual,  88  ;  law,  140-142 

Mechanical  Design,  148 ;  in  archi- 
tecture, 184 
Mel-dy  in  music,  309 ;  in  poetry,  326,  330 
Method  of  study,  its  stages,  i 
Modit  'at  ion,                                           303 
Moldings,                                               224 
Mor.tl  relations  in  music,                   312 
Music,  origin,  291 ;  rank,  292  ;  law  of 
idea,  292  ;   law  of  material,  298 ; 
law  of  form,  307;   history,  314; 
how  interpreted,                                376 
Oratory,                                                  319 
Orders  pf  archi'ecture,                        199 
Outline  in  architecture,                        180 
Paint  in  Grecian  architecture,            223 
Painting,  origin,  272;  law  of  idea, 
272  ;    departments,   273  ;    law  of 
material,  275  ;  unity  and  other  in- 


INDEX. 


PAGE. 

tellectual  principles,  284 ;  history, 
285  ;  Egyptian,  286  ;  Grecian, 
286;  Roman,  287;  modem,  287; 
how  interpreted,  379 

Parthenon,  the,  203 

Paul  the  Apostle,  quoted,  147 

Picturesque  style  in  landscape,  245 

Pitch,  in  music,  298 

Poetry,  a  free  art,  319  ;  law  of  idea, 
320;  subjects  and  kinds,' 321  ;  its 
idea,  thought,  322  ;  law  of  mate- 
rial, 323  ;  law  of  form,  329  ;   his- 
tory, 334 
Portuguese  poetry,  341 
Pretty,  the,  121 
Proper  Beauty,  113  ;  laws,  157 
Proportion,  beauty  of,  75  ;  in  archi- 
tecture, 192  ;  in  landscape,  242  ;  in 
sculpture,  266;  in  music,                  312 
Prosody,                                                  324 
Pseudo-naturil  style  in  landscape,    244 
Quality  of  sound,                                    305 
Quatremere  de  Quincy,   theory  of 

beauty,  21 

Rainbo-v,  an  instance  of  the  beauti- 
ful, 3  ;  analysis  of  experience,  4—8 
Relations  of  beauty,  386-429  ;  meth- 
od, 335 ;  to  the  true  and  the 
good,  388 ;  of  aesthetics  to  logic 
and  ethics,  397 

Relativeness  of  Beauty,  32-36  ;  of 
degree,  32  ;  of  kind,  33  ;  external, 
33  ;  internal,  34 

Relief,  263 

Reynolds,   Sir    Joshua,    quoted  on 

use  of  material  in  sculpture,  259 

Rhyme,  325 

Rhythm  in  music,  308  ;  in  poetry,  324 
Richter,  exposition  of  the  sublime,  116 
Roman  architecture,  209,  poetry,  340 
Ruskin,  cited,  179,  181,  283 

St.  Peter1  sin  Rome,  211 

St.  Sophia  in  Constantinople,  213 

Schiller,   discrimination  of  proper 

beauty  and  sublimity,  116,  cited,     420 
Science  of  Beauty,  aesthetics,  46 

Sculpture,  a  free  art,  248 ;  origin, 
243 ;  law  of  idea,  249 ;  ideals, 
250  ;  three  classes,  252  ;  law  of 
material,  255;  law  of  form,  260; 
law  of  artistic  design,  262 ;  of 
unity,  265  ;  aesthetic  number,  pro- 


PAGB. 

portion,  266 ;  symmetry  and  har- 
mony, 267 ;  history,  Egyptian, 
268;  Grecian,  268  ;  modern,  271  ; 
how  interpreted,  372 

Senses  addressed  in  beaut}',  93-97  ; 
aesthetic^  gradation  of  senses,  97; 
distribution  of  arts  in  respect  to 
senses  addressed,  too 

Sensibility,  its  conditions,  348  ;  im- 
pressible, 349;  in  close  communi- 
cation wilh  object,  350;  entire  sur- 
render to  it,  351  ;  sympathetic, 
352;  intelligent,  353  ;  moral,  355 

Serviti'y  in  style,  144 

Shading,  281  ;  in  music,  294 

Solger,  theory  of  beauty,  19 

Sound,  fourfold  variation  in,  298 

Spanish  poetry,  341 

Spirit  in  Beau'y,  idea,  1 1 

Statuary,  263 

Style,  laws  of,  natural,  opposed  to 
mannerism  and  to  servile  imita- 
tion, truthful  and  catholic,  sympa- 
thetic, graceful,    _  143-147 
Sublimity,   115;   divisions  of,   119; 

laws  of  expressing,  160 

Support,  law  of,  in  architecture,          iS8 
Symbols  in  art,  431 

Symmetry,  beauty  of,  76  ;  in  archi- 
tecture, 194 ;   in  landscape,  242 
Sympathy  in  style,  146 
Taste,  necessary  principles,  28 
True,  idea  of  the,                                  388 
Truthful  Beauty,  71  ;  in  style,           145 
Tuscan  order,                                        208 
Typical  Beauty,  77  ;  see  Catholic. 
Unity,  beauty  of,  73  ;  law  of,  133  ; 
in  architecture,  189 ;  in  landscape, 
241  ;  in  sculpture,  265  ;  in  paint- 
ing, 284;  inmusic,  310;  in  poetry,  333 
Universality  of  Beauty,                   24-3 1 
Uses  of  beauty,  408 ;  of  aesthetics,     423 
ViscJier,  exclusion  of  beauty  from 

touch,  taste,  and  smell,  96 

Word,  element  in  discourse,  317; 

as  symbol,  327 

Word-sounds,  323 

Wordsworth,  quoted,  414,  415 

Zimmerman,  doctrine  that  pleasure 
in  the  beautiful  rests  on  a  judg- 
ment, 3; 


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